Tampa Man Charged With Threatening to Wipe Out City's Gay Community

Police say Ralph Perkins, who has been arrested, made the threat after being rejected on a dating app.

Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.

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Trudy Ring

December 19 2019 9:10 AM EST

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A Tampa, Fla., man has been arrested on charges of making a threat to wipe out the city's gay community in a mass shooting.

Ralph Perkins, 50, made the threat after being rejected on a dating app, police told the Tampa Bay Times. The app was not identified.

Perkins posted statements including "I like to take a gun I like to wipe the whole gay community out in Tampa and then kill myself" and "That's going to be my ultimate present to Tampa Florida is the annihilator the gay community before I kill myself," police said. Law enforcement officials received a report of the threats Tuesday evening but didn't say when he posted them.

Police arrested Perkins shortly after midnight Wednesday. He is being held in the Hillsborough County Jail "on a charge of making a written threat to conduct a mass shooting," according to the Times. Officials did not say if he possessed guns with which to act on the threat.

Perkins is a registered sex offender because of a 2004 arrest in Alabama, the Times reports. He has been arrested previously on charges of failing to register as such and of providing false information to police.