JERKULES STRIKES AGAIN: KEVIN SORBO POST LINKED TO PAWTUCKET ICE RINK SLAUGHTER

I was originally going to fold this into my ongoing series on gun violence at high school sporting events.

Another rink. Another gym. Another afternoon turned into a crime scene.

But the story out of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, refused to stay in its lane.

What happened at Dennis M. Lynch Arena wasn’t just another example of how guns have infiltrated every corner of American life. It became something else almost immediately. It became a culture war football. It became a headline war. It became a distraction.

So let’s slow it down and walk through what actually happened.

On the afternoon of February 16th, 2026, families gathered at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket for what should have been a routine high school hockey game. Livestreamed. Parents in the stands. Kids on the ice.

Around 2:30 p.m., gunfire erupted inside the rink.

Police say they responded in under two minutes. Roughly 100 witnesses were interviewed. Surveillance footage and livestream recordings now form part of the investigation. Players dove for cover. Skated for locker rooms. Spectators ran. CPR was reportedly performed in the stands.

When it was over, three people were dead, including the shooter. The two other fatalities were the mother of the shooter’s hockey-playing son and that player’s sibling. Three additional victims, including two relatives and a family friend, were left in critical condition.

Police say the suspect died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Officers were not involved in his death. Firearms were recovered at the scene. A Good Samaritan reportedly attempted to intervene and disarm him, possibly helping bring a swift end to the bloodshed.

The Rhode Island Interscholastic League suspended all games statewide. Mayor Don Grebien set up 211 counseling services. Governor Dan McKee offered thoughts and prayers, saying the state was “grieving again.”

Again.

Because this happened just two months after a gunman killed two students at Brown University in nearby Providence before taking his own life.

That’s the context mainstream outlets have focused on: proximity and recency. A state reeling from consecutive acts of gun violence.

But that’s not the narrative everyone chose.

Police identified the shooter as Robert Dorgan, 56. He also went by the name Roberta Esposito.

I’m against deadnaming anyone. I believe people deserve to be addressed as they identify. However, because most of the reporting and official statements are using Robert Dorgan as the primary identifier, I will use that name here to avoid confusion.

Court records show Dorgan had a long history of family disputes. In 2020, he reported to police that he had undergone gender-reassignment surgery and was involved in a conflict with his father-in-law, who allegedly threatened him. Charges were filed and later dismissed. Around the same time, his wife filed for divorce. The initial filing referenced “gender reassignment surgery” and personality traits before being amended to irreconcilable differences. The divorce was finalized in 2021.

There were also reports of disputes involving his mother, again ending in dismissed charges. His daughter told reporters outside the police station that he was “very sick” and had “mental health issues.”

Police believe he entered the arena to watch a family member’s game. He was the father of one of the players.

Which raises an obvious question: was there a custody issue at the heart of this?

To be clear, a custody dispute would not excuse what happened. Nothing excuses what happened. But when a parent opens fire at their own child’s hockey game and family members are the primary victims, it is reasonable to ask whether a simmering domestic conflict reached a catastrophic breaking point.

This looks, first and foremost, like domestic violence that spilled into a public space.

And that matters.

It didn’t take long for certain outlets to frame this differently.

Right-wing media, particularly the New York Post, quickly drew comparisons to the Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia school shooting because that suspect was also transgender. They highlighted an X post Dorgan made the night before, where he responded to commentary about transgender Rep. Sarah McBride and wrote, “Keep bashing us. But do not wonder why we Go BERSERK.”

The Post framed it as a “trans-rights rant.” They paired it with rhetoric about another transgender shooter. The implication was clear: this was part of a pattern. A political statement. A warning.

Mainstream outlets, by contrast, have largely compared the Pawtucket shooting to the Brown University attack two months earlier. Their emphasis has been geographic and chronological, not ideological. Rhode Island. Another shooting. Another community in mourning.

Two different lenses. Two different narratives.

One tries to place this in a national conversation about gun violence. The other tries to place it in a national conversation about transgender identity.

The latter is a distraction.

Strip away the identity politics, and what do we have?

A man in the middle of long-running family disputes. A documented history of conflict. Allegations of mental health issues from his own daughter. Access to multiple firearms, including a backup weapon.

He walked into a youth sporting event and started shooting.

This is America’s recurring nightmare.

The common denominator in these events is not transgender identity. It is not political affiliation. It is not social media posts.

It is the ease with which someone in crisis can obtain and carry firearms into a crowded public space.

And layered on top of that is our chronic failure to provide meaningful, accessible mental health resources. We wait for people to explode. We wait for warning signs to turn into obituaries.

Then we argue about culture.

Then we move on.

If you want to have an honest conversation about prevention, start there. Start with gun proliferation. Start with intervention systems that actually work. Start with domestic violence dynamics that are too often minimized until they turn lethal.

But that’s not as clickable as a headline about “trans rage.”

The X post Dorgan responded to reportedly came from Kevin Sorbo. Yes, that Kevin Sorbo. The former Hercules actor who has reinvented himself as a culture-war pundit. Jerkules, as critics like to call him.

If I wanted to practice “journalism” the way the New York Post does, I could craft a headline claiming that Kevin Sorbo’s hateful tweet caused this shooting. I could draw a straight line from his rhetoric to the rink in Pawtucket. I could declare that inflammatory commentary triggered a massacre.

But that would be irresponsible. Funny, but irresponsible. So, I went with funny and did it anyway.

However, it is absurd.

People do not commit mass shootings because of a single tweet. They commit them because of a complex mix of personal crisis, grievance, access to weapons, and often untreated mental health conditions. Social media can amplify anger. It can validate grievances. It can escalate rhetoric. But it is rarely the sole ignition source.

The Post’s framing invites readers to see this as part of a broader ideological war. It’s easier to sell outrage about transgender politics than it is to grapple with the dull, repetitive reality of American gun violence.

Meanwhile, two victims are dead and others are hospitalized.

That’s the story.

The real questions are not about transgender identity.

They are about why a man with a documented history of family conflict could walk into a crowded arena armed. They are about whether warning signs were missed. They are about how domestic disputes escalate. They are about how mental health care gaps leave families to navigate crises alone.

And they are about why America continues to normalize the presence of firearms in spaces where children gather.

We can debate ideology all day. We can argue about tweets. We can play comparison games between Rhode Island and British Columbia.

Or we can admit that this is what happens when domestic violence meets easy gun access in a country that treats mental health care as optional.

The rink in Pawtucket should have been loud with skates on ice and parents cheering.

Instead, it echoed with gunshots.

And until we focus on the real drivers behind that sound, we will keep hearing it.

(Sources)