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(Trends Wide) — The suspect in a shooting at a Colorado LGBTQ nightclub this weekend was identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, who police say entered Club Q in Colorado Springs and immediately opened fire, killing five people and wounding at least 19 others. .
Aldrich, 22, faces five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of a hate crime causing bodily harm in connection with the shooting, according to an online filing in El Paso County courts.
The suspect was taken into police custody and was being treated at a hospital, police said, adding that officers did not shoot him. Aldrich remained hospitalized until Monday morning, when Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said the suspect had made no statement to police, despite his attempts to interview him for the investigation.
“I have not heard that he has not cooperated, just that he has chosen not to speak to investigators,” Vasquez said, adding that he expected the charges to be formally filed “relatively soon after” Aldrich is released from the hospital.
This is what we know about the alleged attacker.
The attacker entered with “enormous firepower”, says the owner of the premises
Police received multiple 911 calls about the shooting that began at 11:56 p.m. local time, according to police. Officers were dispatched at 11:57 p.m. and an agent arrived at Club Q at midnight. The suspect was taken into custody at 12:02 a.m., police said.
Police said two firearms were recovered at the scene, including a long rifle that Vasquez described in an interview with Trends Wide as an AR-style weapon. The suspect also had a handgun, he told Trends Wide on Monday, although the long rifle was the primary weapon used in the shooting.
Two law enforcement sources told Trends Wide that records indicate the suspect purchased both weapons, an AR-style rifle and a pistol. Trends Wide has not confirmed when those purchases were made.
The gunman appeared heavily armed and was wearing a military-style body armor when he arrived at the club, the club’s owners told the Times, citing their review of surveillance footage.
Haynes said the gunman entered with “enormous firepower,” the Times reported.
Although the suspect is already facing state charges, numerous federal offices and agencies, including the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, are aware of the shooting, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado said in a statement Monday. The attorney’s office said it would “review all available facts of the incident to determine what federal response is warranted.”
Online court records showed Aldrich is out of bond. The file does not reflect whether Aldrich has retained an attorney.
Club patrons arrested the attacker
The shooting lasted only a few minutes because people inside the club were able to subdue the suspect, police said.
“At least two heroic people within the club confronted and fought with the suspect and were able to stop him,” Vasquez said. “We owe a great debt of gratitude to them.”
Matthew Haynes, one of the club’s owners, told The New York Times that a patron “knocked down the attacker and was assisted by another.”
“He saved dozens and dozens of lives,” Haynes said of the first sponsor. “Stopped the man in his tracks. Everyone else was running away, and he ran towards him.”
Among the injured was one of the people who stopped the attacker, Vásquez told Trends Wide on Monday, adding that the injury was not life-threatening. The second person was not injured, Vasquez said.
The suspect previously arrested in connection with a bomb threat
Aldrich was arrested in June 2021 in connection with a bomb threat that sparked a confrontation at his mother’s home, according to a news release from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office at the time and his mother’s former landlord. . Colorado Springs is in El Paso County.
Two police sources confirmed that the suspect in Saturday’s shooting and the bomb threat were the same person based on name and date of birth.
Video obtained by Trends Wide shows Aldrich turning himself in to law enforcement last year after allegedly making a bomb threat. Door camera footage from Ring, the home’s owner, shows Aldrich leaving the home with his hands up and barefoot, and walking toward the officers.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report from the man’s mother that she was “threatening to harm him with a pipe bomb, multiple weapons and ammunition,” according to the statement. Deputies called the suspect and he “refused to comply with the surrender orders,” the statement said, prompting them to evacuate nearby homes.
In new video obtained by Trends Wide, Aldrich appears to be railing against the police and challenging them to break into the house where he was hiding.
“I got the motherfuckers outside, look at that, they’re targeting me,” Aldrich says in the video, pointing the camera at a window with blinds covering it. “See that right there? The fucking idiots drew their rifles.”
“If they break through, I’m going to blow it to holy hell,” Aldrich adds, walking in and out of a room.
The video ends with what appears to be a message to law enforcement outside: “So go ahead and get in guys! Let’s see it!
The video does not actually show any officers outside the home, and it is not clear from the video if Aldrich had any weapons in the home.
Several hours after the initial call to police, the sheriff’s crisis negotiations unit managed to get Aldrich out of the house and he was arrested after walking out the front door, seen in other video footage previously reported by Trends Wide. . Authorities found no explosives in the home.
Leslie Bowman, the owner of the home where Aldrich’s mother lived, provided the videos to Trends Wide. Aldrich’s mother rented a room in the house for a little over a year, Bowman said, and Aldrich was visiting her mother there.
Attempts by Trends Wide to reach Aldrich’s mother for comment were unsuccessful. Vasquez said Monday that he had not cooperated with the investigation into Saturday’s shooting, but that authorities “would appreciate an interview with her at any time.”
It was not immediately clear how the bomb threat case was resolved, but the Colorado Springs Gazette reported that the district attorney’s office said no formal charges were filed in the case. The district attorney’s office did not respond to Trends Wide’s request for comment.
Aldrich’s arrest in connection with the bomb threat would not have shown up in background checks, according to law enforcement sources who said records indicate he bought the guns, because the case was never adjudicated, the charges were dropped and the records were sealed. It is not clear what prompted the sealing of the records.
Aldrich also called out The Gazette in an attempt to remove an earlier story about the 2021 incident from the website, the newspaper reported. “There is absolutely nothing there, the case is dropped and I am asking you to remove or update the story,” Aldrich said in a voicemail, according to the Gazette.
Aldrich is the grandson of a California legislator.
Aldrich is the grandson of outgoing California Assemblyman Randy Voepel, according to social media reports and Trends Wide interviews.
Voepel, who has served as a state legislator since 2016, lost his re-election bid earlier this month. He could not be reached for comment. It’s unclear how much Voepel, the father of Aldrich’s mother, interacted with Aldrich’s grandchild.
As a lawmaker, Voepel drew attention when he compared the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to the Revolutionary War.
“This is Lexington and Concord. First shots against tyranny,” he said, according to the San Diego Union Tribune. “Tyranny will continue after Biden is sworn in on January 20.”
Voepel later tried to retract of your comments tweeting a statement that read in part: “I do not condone or support the violence and lawlessness that took place on Wednesday, January 6 in our nation’s capital. The loss of life, the theft of government property, and the flagrant disregard for law and order are reprehensible and unnecessary.”
Suspect’s background highlights Colorado’s red flag law
The revelation about the suspect’s confrontation with police last year has raised questions about Colorado’s red flag law and whether it should have been applied to Aldrich, or if it would have prevented the Club Q shooting.
Colorado, which has been the site of numerous high-profile mass shootings over the past two decades, passed its red flag law in 2019. It is intended to temporarily prevent a person in crisis from accessing firearms through a warrant judicial, provoked by the individual’s family, a member of his household or a law enforcement officer.
It is unclear if Aldrich had purchased firearms prior to his June 2021 arrest.
Asked Monday whether the red flag law should have been implemented in Aldrich’s case, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said it was “too early to make decisions.”
“It’s still a new tool that we’re learning to use,” Weiser said. “We know that every tragedy is a learning opportunity to ask ourselves, what did we miss? What can we do better in the future?”
— Trends Wide’s Amanda Watts, Nelli Black, Casey Tolan, John Miller, Michelle Watson, Blake Ellis, Rob Kuznia, Daniel A. Medina, Scott Glover, Scott Bronstein and Majlie de Puy Kamp contributed to this report.
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