(AP) Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday visited the memorial outside Club Q, where five people were killed in a shooting attack last week. He solemnly walked along a line of flowers, crosses and signs bearing the photos and names of the victims.

When he reached the end, he picked up a piece of pink chalk and drew a heart and wrote “We remember” on the pavement in front of the memorial, which had been covered with tarps to protect it from snow until his arrival.

“Five people are lost forever. We celebrate their lives. We mourn them,” Polis said while speaking to reporters afterward at the site.

Polis, who spoke earlier in the day to relatives of those killed as well as the injured, wore a gay pride ribbon pinned to the zipper of his puffy jacket. The Democrat, who became the first openly gay man elected governor in the U.S. in 2018, said he was concerned about rhetoric associating mainly transgender people with grooming and pedophilia and feared it could “inspire acts against the LGBTQ community.”

But he was also optimistic about the future of the club, a sanctuary for the LGBTQ community.

“Club Q will be back and the community will be back,” he said.

– By JESSE BEDAYN, AP