Suspect in New Bedford Bar Attack Dies After Chase and Shootout with Arkansas Police

Boston - Jacob Robida, the 18 year-old suspect in an attack on Puzzles, a gay bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts late Wednesday night died early this morning from wounds sustained in a gun battle with Arkansas police. 

Robida led police on a 16-mile chase after shooting a local police officer who had pulled him over for a routine traffic stop. After Robida crashed his car, he traded gunfire with police and was shot twice in the head.  A woman who was riding in the car with Robida also died. Robida was finally captured by police in the northern Arkansas town of Gassville Saturday evening.  Three men were wounded, one critically in the New Bedford attack.

“Our hearts have been with the victims of Wednesday night's attack since we first got word of it, but now we also think of the family, friends and colleagues of those lost in Arkansas; these last few days have been almost nothing but tragic -- we cannot forget that this was an eighteen year-old young man who first upended the lives of innocent people and then facilitated the deaths of three other people including his own," said Patton.   

"When his capture was announced yesterday, we thought that we might one day know from Robida exactly why he went on his rampage Wednesday night, now it's possible that we will never know.  Nevertheless, it is important to note that what happened in New Bedford happened on the tail-end of some of the dreadful rhetoric accompanying efforts to overturn Massachusetts' same-sex marriage law.  Again and again we have seen that as efforts to marginalize, or in the case of Massachusetts, re-marginalize our community escalate, sick and violent people take those efforts as license to step up violence against LGBT people.  It happened in Massachusetts during the fight to secure same-sex marriage rights, it happened in San Francisco for the same reasons, and unfortunately, for the last three years, it’s been happening across the nation as our community has come under increased political and rhetorical fire,” concluded Patton.

According to NCAVP, Massachusetts and other regions of the country have seen levels of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people rise dramatically in recent years. 

Case Background:

Early Thursday morning, Robida entered Puzzles, ordered a drink and asked if Puzzles was a gay bar. He finished his drink shortly after midnight, ordered another, then started attacking people with a hatchet and then a gun, according to a witnesses. Police have been searching for Robida since his identity became known Thursday.  The warrant for his arrest includes charges of assault, attempted murder and civil-rights violations. 

According to a court filing attached to the warrant, a woman in the bar recognized had recognized Robida as a current or former student at New Bedford High School. Acting Police Chief David Provencher said Robida had graduated in 2001 from the city's Junior Police Academy, a "boot camp" that teaches discipline to 12- to 14-year-olds. 

NCAVP's annual national report on anti-LGBT hate violence will be released April 28 and available at www.ncavp.org.

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs addresses the pervasive problem of violence committed against and within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive communities. NCAVP is a coalition of programs that document and advocate for victims of anti-LGBT and anti-HIV/AIDS violence/harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, police misconduct and other forms of victimization.

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