{"id":166438,"date":"2026-02-24T02:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/166438\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T02:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:05:13","slug":"gay-man-killed-in-shooting-near-popular-orlando-lgbtq-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/166438\/","title":{"rendered":"Gay man killed in shooting near popular Orlando LGBTQ+ club"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 33-year-old gay Florida<\/a> man was shot and killed early Sunday outside the LGBTQ+<\/a> nightclub Savoy Orlando<\/a>, and a suspect has been charged, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ<\/a>+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate’s email newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n

Police said officers responded about 2:30 a.m. following reports of a shooting. Authorities found Julien Emmanuel Cruz suffering from a gunshot wound and transported him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. According to law enforcement officials, the fatal shooting followed a verbal and physical confrontation as crowds were leaving the nightclub.<\/p>\n

Related: Florida man charged with hate crime after killing a gay man in a dog park<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the dispute, the suspect retrieved a firearm from his vehicle and shot the victim,\u201d Orlando Police said.<\/p>\n

Police arrested Jean Gabriel Borja Gil De La Madr, 37, and charged him with second-degree murder with a firearm, according to an Orlando Police Department statement posted on social media. Cruz\u2019s family told<\/a> Orlando\u2019s NBC affiliate WESH that investigators are still working to determine who fired the fatal shot and described the killing as a senseless escalation of a brief encounter.<\/p>\n

Related: Pulse shooting remains a grim moment in LGBTQ+ history 8 years later<\/a><\/p>\n

“When they fought, my son saw [what was] happening, my son went to intervene, and when he intervened, another guy got out of the car, and he got shot,” Anthony Cruz, the victim\u2019s father, said.<\/p>\n

Cruz said his son and his son\u2019s partner had left the club after it closed when a car drove by, and the partner yelled at the occupants.<\/p>\n

Anthony Cruz told the station that one of the occupants began fighting with the man. “My son didn’t deserve what happened. All I have left is a shirt. A shirt with a bullet hole. And this is just not cool,” he said.<\/p>\n

A judge ordered Gabriel Borja held without bond during a Monday morning court appearance.<\/p>\n

Police said the killing was the city\u2019s third homicide of 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 33-year-old gay Florida man was shot and killed early Sunday outside the LGBTQ+ nightclub Savoy Orlando, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[265,28,21132,3367,1432,1933,139,141,140,42065],"class_list":{"0":"post-166438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-gay","11":"tag-gun-violence","12":"tag-lgbtq","13":"tag-murder","14":"tag-orlando","15":"tag-orlando-headlines","16":"tag-orlando-news","17":"tag-savoy-orlando"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}