Right-wing troll charged with harassment of LGBTQ+ activist for posting selfie with dying dad
A 34-year-old man in Ontario, Canada, has been charged with criminal harassment after he allegedly broke into a palliative care ward where the father of an LGBTQ+ ally he had clashed with on Facebook lay dying, and took a photo of himself by the man’s bedside.
Bubba Pollock shared the photo on a post made by the man’s daughter, LGBTQ+ ally and activist Britt Leroux.
In the days prior, Pollock is said to have sent several messages over social media to a local Drag Queen Storytime event set to take place on 10 June, claiming he had allegedly organised a counter-protest with “60 patriots”, saying he would cancel the protest if the event was pulled.
According to Leroux, the event went ahead with little pushback from Pollock’s group, thanks to the assistance of LGBTQ+ groups.
After she confronted Pollock in a Facebook post, he responded with a selfie of Leroux’s hospitalised father in his private, palliative care ward, which he is suspected of using deceptive means to gain access to.
Leroux told PinkNews that she first became aware of Pollock while working to protect families from anti-LGBTQ+ protestors at the Pride Month Drag Queen Storytime event.
“I had found his profile from him targeting our friends, so I made two posts calling him out, asking ‘Where were the 60 people that you claimed were going to be at Pride,’ because there were six.
“Love won that day, love was louder,” she told PinkNews. “He didn’t like that and he didn’t like that I called him out and did it publicly.”
She said that her father was “blissfully ignorant” of the situation due to being heavily sedated and was unaware of police officers who attended the clinic as part of an investigation.
“He kind of looked up when the police were there and said, ‘Hey guys’, because he has a lot of old police friends, and I just said, ‘Everything’s fine’, and he went back to sleep.
“So on that side, that’s okay, Dad doesn’t know,” she continued.
“We will be okay because I am strong, thank god, and we have the community behind us.”
Her partner, John Leroux added: “It’s terrible that it had to get to this point involving Britt’s father, but in the big picture of it, it’s a good thing because it’s exposing him.”
Windsor Police Service confirmed that Pollock was arrested and charged with criminal harassment as part of an investigation that began on 15 June. He has since been released pending a trial date in the near future.
“Bubba is pretty well known,” Local nonprofit Diversity Ed co-chair Crystal Fach told PinkNews.
“Bubba has been known to say some pretty defamatory things about some of the drag artists within our community, like calling them paedophiles and perverts and all of these things online.
“In southwestern Ontario, we have seen an increase of their presence in a lot of these anti-choice LGBTQ+ groups, and so there are quite a few people that have had online interactions with Bubba.”
Anti-drag hate has risen sharply in the US, Canada, and the UK over the past few years. (Getty)
“A lot of times when these things are happening we’re getting told that it’s not illegal or this isn’t really a threat or you’re taking it the wrong way. He’s very clever at how he words things so that it can be dismissed.”
Fach explained that, in the case of the palliative ward selfie, Pollock allegedly attempted to frame the selfie as a family visit.
In screenshots shown to PinkNews, Pollock appears to write to members of the family, saying he was “very excited to meet you soon”.
In those same messages, Pollock also threatened family members, saying that they “don’t have the resources or wealth that I do” and that they were “a coward”.
After the story went viral on TikTok, Leroux noted that a lot of the comments she had seen were not in line with her beliefs on how Pollock’s behaviour should be handled.
“People are saying some harmful things towards Bubba and that’s not what we want at all,” she said. “I do not wish any harm on him whatsoever, this is clearly a very sick individual who needs help.”
She also said she is concern his activities will continue during future Pride Month events, adding: “There will be some events going on that Bubba is not going to like, so I’m worried about them.”
Leroux also expressed her gratitude towards the community in Ontario and beyond, saying: “I knew y’all loved us, but I didn’t know y’all loved us this much.”
She specifically thanked the motorcycle group WindSisters, who have been recently defending Pride events from protestors.
“It is absolutely amazing,” Leroux said. “That’s how we found out about Bubba because we joined their group. We actually got to guard the families at Pride, we got to stand in the semicircle around them with a rainbow sheet that was lifted up, it was so beautiful.”
Drag has become increasingly targeted by right-wing activists due to misinformation about family-friendly events.
A report from Statistics Canada, published by Global News, found that anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes between 2019 and 2021 had risen by at least 54 per cent.
Drag events have become a particular target for anti-LGBTQ+ hate, with counter-protestors invading three different drag events across Canada over one weekend in January.