November 21, 2022 Mass shooting in Colorado Springs

Barrett Hudson was shot seven times by the gunman at a Colorado Springs nightclub on Saturday night – and he doesn’t know how he’s still alive.

“Seven bullets missed my spine, missed my liver, missed my colon.” Hudson told CNN’s Jon Berman. “I got really, really lucky. I don’t know how I’m here.”

Hudson took his first steps on Monday. “I did not expect to make it. I damn sure did not expect to walk as soon as I’m walking,” he said.

Hudson said he had just moved to Colorado a few weeks earlier and decided to check out Club Q.

After only about 30-45 minutes inside, he heard several pops amid the music and then saw the gunman, who proceeded to shoot a man right in front of Barrett.

 “I took off running to the back and I got shot. I knew I got shot a few times. I fell down. He proceeded to shoot me. I got back up. I made it out of the back of the club,” said Hudson, who described a dramatic escape that included climbing over a chainlink fence before he ended up at a 7-Eleven.

He then collapsed and bystanders came to his aid. “They stopped the bleeding. They saved my life,” he said.

As he lay there, Hudson called his dad – whom he called his best friend.

 “That was the last person that I wanted to talk to,” Hudson said, not knowing whether or not he would survive. 

Gil Rodriguez, who was in Club Q on Saturday night, recalled that he first thought there were multiple shooters inside the Colorado Springs nightclub.

“From the amount of shots that initially went off when he came into the club, I honestly thought it was multiple people shooting,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday.

Rodriguez was accompanied by Felicia Juvera, who was at the nightclub to support a friend who was DJing. And, at first, she thought the shots were part of the song that was playing.

 “I remember the sounds. I honestly thought it was the music myself until I smelled the actual gunpowder. The smell is what got to me,” Juvera said. “When Gil said to get down immediately, my initial thought was just ‘React, act quickly and get on the ground.’”

Rodriguez, who had served in the military, said his instincts kicked in when he heard the gunshots. 

“Once I kind of heard the gunshots, like, stop shooting, I kind of, like, scanned the room to ensure that he wasn’t still in the room,” Rodriguez said. “I immediately called 9-1-1 to get them on the scene as soon as possible.”

Juvera said her friend who was working the DJ booth was shot in the attack.

As of Monday, her condition had improved.

“She’s doing much better. I know at this point that it was a success to get the bullet out. And they did have to take her appendix out, but she is going to make a great recovery,” Juvera said.

Richard M. Fierro, one of the men who tackled the gunman in the Colorado Springs Club Q shooting, said it wasn’t about being the hero — it was all about protecting his family.

“I’m protecting my family… and I did what I had to do. And honestly, I don’t care about myself in that moment, I care about everybody that was around me and I care especially about my family,” he said in an interview on AC 360 on Monday night.

His daughter’s boyfriend Raymond Vance was killed in the shooting and two friends are still in hospital.

Fierro, a former Army major, said he was at the club with family and friends to watch his daughter’s friend, her junior prom date, perform in a drag show.

As soon as Fierro heard gunfire, he said he pulled his friend to the ground.

“At that point, I saw the shooter,” he said. “I had no idea what was going on.”

Fierro said he saw the gunman start moving toward the patio area, and noticed he was wearing a body armor vest – and he knew there was a handle on the vest. So he ran across the room and grabbed the handle and pulled the suspect to the ground, he said.

At this point, the suspect’s rifle flew out of his hands. Fierro said he started hitting him with a pistol. “I just started whaling away with his gun,” he said.

Fierro served in the US Army for nearly 15 years and had four combat deployments.

“My daughter and wife should have never experienced combat in Colorado Springs, and everybody in that building experienced combat that night, not to their own accord, but because they were forced to,” he said.

When police arrived, Fierro said he started first aid on his friend who was shot in the chest, arms and legs. He said her husband was nearby, reaching for her.

“I put her hand in his hand so that they could be together. I didn’t know if they were going to make it,” he said.

“There’s five people that didn’t go home,” Fierro added emotionally, saying that he wishes he could have protected everyone in the nightclub.

Raymond Green Vance, 22, one of five people killed in Saturday’s shooting at Club Q, was visiting the club for the first time with his longtime girlfriend, her parents, and some of her parents’ friends, his family said in a statement provided to CNN.

They were celebrating a birthday, according to the statement.

“Unfortunately, he never left the club. Raymond was the victim of a man who unleashed terror on innocent people out with family and friends,” the statement said. “His own family and friends are completely devastated by the sudden loss of a son, grandson, brother, nephew, and cousin loved by so many.”

The statement said Vance was supportive of the LGBTQ community. According to the statement Raymond “himself is not a member of it.”

Vance had just gotten a new job at a Colorado Springs FedEx distribution center.

“He couldn’t wait to save enough money to get his own apartment, but in the meantime he lived with his mother and younger brother who adored him,” the statement said.

The family members were not named in the statement.

“Raymond was a kind, selfless young adult with his entire life ahead of him. His closest friend describes him as gifted, one-of-a-kind, and willing to go out of his way to help anyone,” the statement said.

He spent most of his spare time with his girlfriend, who he’d been with since middle school. He also played video games and hoped to turn that into an online career, the statement added.

The husband of Colorado Springs shooting victim Ashley Paugh said she was his high school sweetheart and described her as a loving wife and an amazing mother.

 Ashley Paugh was one of five people killed in Saturday’s shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub. 

“We’re absolutely devastated by the loss of Ashley. She meant everything to this family, and we can’t even begin to understand what it will mean to not have her in our lives,” Kurt Paugh said in a statement.

She worked with Kids Crossing, a nonprofit that helps find loving homes for foster children, her husband wrote.

“She would do anything for the kids – traveling all over southeastern Colorado, from Pueblo and Colorado Springs to Fremont County and the Colorado border, working to raise awareness and encourage individuals and families to become foster parents to children in our community,” he said.

 Paugh said his wife also worked with the LGBTQ community to find foster placements for children.

 “During the holidays, Ashley organized giving trees and delivered them to businesses so that foster kids could have brighter holidays – and in fact, she was setting up giving trees even last week, canvassing Pueblo and Colorado Springs,” he wrote.

He said she loved being outdoors and enjoyed hunting, fishing and riding four-wheelers.

“Ashley was a loving wife – she was my high school sweetheart – and she was just an amazing mother. Her daughter was her whole world, and she was so proud of Ryleigh, who is a championship swimmer. She loved her dad, her sister, and her family; Ashley was a loving aunt, with many nieces and nephews who are devastated by her loss,” he wrote.

Tiffany Loving, the sister of Club Q shooting victim Kelly Loving, said that her sister was a “wonderful person.”

Kelly Loving was one of five people killed in the Saturday night shooting at the LGBTQ nightclub. Her sister released a brief statement Monday.

“My condolences go out to all the families who lost someone in this tragic event, and to everyone struggling to be accepted in this world. My sister was a good person. She was loving and caring and sweet. Everyone loved her. Kelly was a wonderful person,” Tiffany Loving said in the statement to CNN.  

A 45-year-old man who served in the army for nearly 15 years and had four combat deployments as an Army officer told the New York Times he “went into combat mode” when tackling the gunman in the Colorado Springs Club Q shooting.

Richard M. Fierro said he was at a table in Club Q with his wife, daughter and friends Saturday, watching a drag show when the gunfire erupted.

“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Fierro told the Times. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”

According to the Times, Fierro said that as bullets sprayed, he saw the gunman move toward a door leading to a patio.                                                                                 

Fierro said he raced across the room and grabbed the gunman by a handle on the back of his body armor, pulled him to the floor and jumped on him, the report said.

“I grabbed the gun out of his hand and just started hitting him in the head, over and over,” Fierro added.

CNN has reached out to Fierro for comment.

According to the Times, Fierro’s daughter and wife are at home and still recovering from injuries.

Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said he had the opportunity to talk to Fierro. The mayor said the veteran had “saved a lot of lives” by tackling the suspect.

“I have never encountered a person who had engaged in such heroic actions that was so humble about it. He simply said to me, ‘I was trying to protect my family,’” Suthers said at a news conference Monday.

Though the motive in the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs is still under investigation, Michael Allen, the district attorney for El Paso County, said officials are looking into whether it was a bias-motivated crime.

In Colorado, hate crimes are referred to as “bias-motivated” crimes, Allen told CNN earlier Monday.

“It’s important that if we have enough evidence to support bias-motivated crimes, to charge that. It’s important for this community,” Allen said, speaking at a news conference.

He said bias-motivated charges are Class 4 felonies — meaning that it’s not likely they would contribute to a longer sentence.

“We’re obviously talking about five people that were killed. Those are going to be the top-end charges in this case without a doubt,” he said. “Those charges will likely carry life in prison without parole, whereas the Class 4 felonies are probation-eligible offenses.”

Although it wouldn’t elevate the sentence, Allen said adding bias-motivated charges where applicable is important to show the community that the city does not tolerate that kind of hate.

Asked if the suspect could face federal hate crime charges, US Attorney for the District of Colorado Cole Finegan said his office is still reviewing information.

Michael Allen, the district attorney for El Paso County, said the suspect in the nightclub shooting is expected to appear virtually in court from jail after he is released from the hospital.

The man accused of killing five people and injuring more than a dozen others over the weekend is currently in the hospital, according to law enforcement. Once he is released, there will be a first appearance scheduled with the court, Allen said at a news conference Monday. He said that is expected to happen in the next few days.

“We will advise the suspect at that time of the arrest charges and his bond status. He is being held without bond so he will not have the opportunity to be bonded out,” Allen said.

The district attorney said formal charges have not yet been filed against the suspect. The next step in a case like this is for an arrest warrant to be written up supported by a probable cause affidavit – and that has to be submitted to a judge for approval of the arrest.

Allen also noted that while those documents will be initially sealed, they will be available to the public “at some point in the coming days.”

“Once the case is transferred to us for formal charging, we will review the evidence and then determine final charges. It is also very customary that final charges may be different than what is in the arrest affidavit,” Allen said.

“Typically, there will be more charges in a case like this when we do formal charging than what is listed in the arrest affidavit,” he said.

Within a few days of the first appearance “is when we will return to the courtroom and file the formal charges in the court,” according to Allen.

Colorado Springs Police Department Chief Adrian Vasquez offered a moment of silence to honor the five people killed during a shooting at a nightclub over the weekend.

He said society loses often track of the victims when focusing on the suspect of the crime.

At a news conference Monday, the police chief asked that “everyone in the community honor each victim.”

Vasquez released the following names of those killed.

The information was also provided by the Colorado Springs Police Department on Twitter:

After the moment of silence for victims, Vasquez said the department continues its investigation to seek justice for the victims.

New video obtained by CNN appears to show the Colorado Springs shooting suspect ranting about police last year during a standoff. 

Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was arrested after allegedly making a bomb threat in June 2021, live-streamed the video from his mother’s Facebook page, according to his mother’s former landlord. 

Leslie Bowman, who owns the home where the standoff took place and where Aldrich’s mother had been renting a room, said she screen-recorded the video, which has since been deleted, and provided it to CNN. 

The brief video shows a few seconds of an agitated young man — identified by Bowman as Aldrich — wearing a helmet and some type of body armor, and challenging law enforcement to breach the house where he had holed up. 

The video does not actually show any officers outside the house and it’s not clear from the video whether Aldrich had any weapons in the house.  

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release at the time that Aldrich had threatened to harm his mother “with a homemade bomb, multiple weapons, and ammunition,” and that several nearby homes had been evacuated. 

Aldrich later surrendered to sheriff’s deputies, which was seen in other video footage previously reported by CNN. The sheriff’s office said no explosives were found in the house. 

It is 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 pursued in the case. The district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment from CNN. 

Attempts by CNN to reach Aldrich’s mother for comment were unsuccessful. 

A Navy sailor was among those injured in the Colorado night club shooting on Saturday night, a Navy spokesperson tells CNN.

At this time, the sailor’s name and condition are not yet being released.

While ordering a drink at the Club Q bar in Colorado Springs, Ed Sanders, 63, was shot in the back and leg when a gunman opened fire inside the nightclub. He said the chaos of the shooting immediately gave way to victims helping each other.

Sanders, who lost friends in the shooting over the weekend, said the entire incident happened very quickly.

“The shooting started and I was hit in the back and I turned around and saw him and it was very fast,” Sanders told CNN from his hospital bed Monday. “The second volley took my leg and I fell. Everybody fell, pretty much.”

“After the shooting stopped, people were screaming and people were helping each other,” Sanders said. “Several people asked about me. I said that I was hit, but it didn’t seem that bad. The shot to my back didn’t feel like what it left, which is a big scooped out wound,” he explained, motioning with his hands.

Sanders saw the gunman, but couldn’t make out the words the man uttered as he opened fire by the door.

“It seemed like he was firing from his waist, but it was happening so fast, I didn’t really grasp what was going on until I got shot in the leg,” Sanders said.

While Sanders caught a glimpse of the gunman, he did not see the two people who rushed to stop the shooting.

“I didn’t see who the heroes were,” Sanders said. “God bless them, It could have been a lot worse if they hadn’t stepped in when they did.”

In the initial moments after the gunshots, a wounded Sanders tried to assist the woman who was injured right next to him. 

Sanders said he could hear people helping people, some asking for tourniquets. He also lauded the quick police response.

“Police were there in two minutes, but it sounded like an eternity when it was happening, but they were there very fast,” he said.

Michael Allen, the district attorney for El Paso County said there is some evidence that the suspect in Saturday night’s mass shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub had animosity toward the community.

In Colorado, hate crimes are referred to as “bias-motivated” crimes, Allen says.

“We will review all of the evidence and make appropriate filing decisions in this case as it relates to any bias-motivated crimes, but it’s important to note that five people lost their lives, so those murder charges are going to be by and large the top-end charges in this case,” Allen told CNN on Monday.

If the evidence in the case “supports bias-motivated crimes,” then the district attorney’s office will go ahead and file charges. 

“The location is some evidence. The fact that these victims were in a specific location that is predominantly frequented by members of the LGBTQ community… that is evidence and we can use toward the decision of bias-motivated crimes, but we’re looking for other evidence as well as that,” Allen said.

When asked if officials had uncovered any social media accounts from the suspect, Allen said he could not answer that question. 

Allen also chose not to comment on where the suspect had bought the two weapons used in the shooting.

Meanwhile, Allen says the suspect is capable of speaking with law enforcement at this time but added, “I’m going to leave it at that. I don’t want to infringe upon his right to remain silent.” 

Allen says the suspect does have an attorney but did not name that attorney.

Following the tragic shooting in Colorado Springs that left five dead at an LGBTQ nightclub Saturday, first lady Jill Biden said Monday it “hurts our hearts” that gun violence keeps going “on and on.”

Asked about the shooting while receiving the official White House Christmas tree, Biden said: “It just hurts our hearts really that this keeps going on and on. I just know it sounds hollow to say our hearts and prayers are with them.” 

Biden said she didn’t know whether she and the president would visit Colorado. 

Five people were killed and 19 injured after a shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub over the weekend, the Colorado Springs Police Department said.

Police clarified the number of victims Monday afternoon, saying, “We know many more community members were present at Club Q during the shooting, who may be victims with no visible injuries.”

Here’s what we know about the victims so far, according to police:

Police also said that the suspect remains in custody at a local hospital, “so a photograph is not available at this time.”

The grandfather of the shooting suspect in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is outgoing California Assemblyman Randy Voepel who’s been serving as a state lawmaker since 2016.  

Voepel was formerly the mayor of Santee, California. His daughter, Laura Voepel, is the mother of Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, who was arrested Sunday on suspicion of opening fire in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs. The shooting left at least five people dead and more than two dozen injured. 

Randy Voepel, who lost his reelection bid earlier this month, could not be reached for comment. It was unclear how much Voepel interacted with his grandson.

As a lawmaker, Voepel attracted attention when he compared the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol to the Revolutionary War. 

President Joe Biden called Colorado Gov. Jared Polis this afternoon following the deadly shooting in Colorado Springs, the White House said Monday. 

Biden called Polis at approximately 2:22 p.m. ET. 

“The president extended his condolences and offered to provide support in any way that would be helpful. He committed to continuing to press Congress for an assault weapons ban because thoughts and prayers are just not enough,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One.

At least five people were killed and 25 were injured after a gunman’s attack at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub Saturday.

The owners of Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida will loan Section 93 of the Sea-to-Sea Rainbow Flag to Colorado Springs to display in its city hall in honor of the lives lost in the mass shooting at an LGBTQ bar, Colorado Springs City Council member Nancy Henjum told CNN in an interview on CNN Newsroom. 

The flag has been on display in Orlando since 2017, according to the city of Orlando. 

Section 93 of the flag has served as a tribute to the lives lost at the Pulse Nightclub shooting and a sign of support of freedom lovers worldwide.

Henjum said there will likely be a ceremony or acknowledgment when the flag is presented.  

Derrick Rump, was among those killed in the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, his sister Julia Kissling confirmed to CNN. 

Rump worked as a bartender at the club along with Daniel Aston, who was also killed during Saturday night’s shooting. 

“They were in so many ways polar opposites, but worked so well together. They were just amazing and every bar should have a Daniel and a Derrick,” Tiara Kelley, who performed at the club the night before the incident, told CNN.  

When speaking about her brother, Kissling told CNN affiliate WFMZ that her brother “found a community of people that he loved really much, and he felt that he could shine there, and he did.”

“He made a difference in so many people’s lives, and that’s where he wanted to be,” Kissling said. 

“It’s just surreal, still,” Michael Kissling said. “They’re still processing situation of what happened. They’re still mourning the loss of their, her other son and her other brother a couple of months ago. And it’s just, hate’s never acceptable. It doesn’t matter what you think in life, it’s just, hate is never the way to go. And I just, we send prayers to all the families involved.”

Rump was a native of Berks County, Pennsylvania and graduated from Kutztown Area High School in 2002, according to his sister.

The US Attorney’s Office in Colorado is offering its “deepest condolences to the victims and their families” impacted by the Club Q shooting while working to determine “what federal response is warranted.” 

In a statement on Monday, US Attorney Cole Finegan said:

“We will work closely with District Attorney Michael Allen, with local law enforcement, Mayor Suthers, and the Colorado Springs community to ensure the person who did this is brought to justice,” he added.

Numerous local and regional partners are working on the investigation, it added.

Alex Gallagher had just left Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, about 20 minutes before a gunman opened fire killing at least five people—including two of Gallagher’s friends, she told CNN.

Gallagher has several friends that work at the nightclub as performers and behind the bar. “I lost two of my friends and I know a few of them are currently in the hospital right now,” she said Monday. She’s not sure of the condition of her friends who are still recovering at the hospital.

On Saturday night, Gallagher was not able to get in touch with friends who were there so she left the club early. “I figured it was just best to have an early night—and thank God,” she said.

Gallagher said she was driving home, and “got a call from my friend that was in the outdoor smoking area, and he was hiding—and I heard everything that happened.”

“There was [sic] gunshots, people screaming. It was just horrible,” she said. “I was crying, I was angry, I was confused…that this person did this.”

Gallagher said she’s “fed up” with the violence toward the LGBTQ community.

“We won’t stand for this hate no more. We’re fed up [with] being pushed around and bullied and getting hurt and killed because people just don’t like the way we are,” she said.

Leaders and activists are calling on lawmakers to enact legislation for LGBTQ people in the wake of a mass shooting where at least five people were killed inside a Colorado Springs, Colorado, LGBTQ club.

Kelley Robinson, incoming president of the Human Rights Campaign, said Monday she’s equal parts heartbroken and enraged.

“What has happened has not happened in a vacuum,” Robinson said, citing an uptick in anti-LGTBQ rhetoric and legislation. Robinson called for lawmakers to pass commonsense gun legislation to combat the rise of extremism and white supremacy. 

Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords, an anti-gun violence organization led by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, said Sunday’s shooting is part of a political system of hate and violence.

Ambler is calling on Congress and state legislatures to pass the Disarm Hate Act, which aims to prevent hate-motivated violence.

Barrett Hudson was shot seven times during the shooting at Club Q this weekend, but none of the bullets pierced any vital organs.  

“I was hit seven times in the back with an AR-15, up and down from the top of my back to my bottom. I got very lucky it missed all my organs — my colon, my spine, my lungs. There’s no way I shoulda walked out of there and I’m very, very appreciative for life and for you guys to interview me and get my side of the story,” he told CNN in an interview from his hospital bed. “Maybe I can help somebody else and be strong — for me as well as other people.” 

Hudson recently moved to Colorado and decided to check out the club with his friend on Saturday night.  

“I’ve never heard gunshots in a club before that. I had heard popping balloons and it kinda sounds like that because the music’s so loud, and you really think, ‘that’s not a gun.’ And I heard ‘pop pop pop pop pop pop pop,’ and I look right and I see a door kinda shut, and there’s the gunman,” he said, recognizing the weapon because he has one at home.

“There was a man in front of him, he put his hands up a little bit and took two steps back, and the dude just killed him,” Hudson said. “That’s when I took off running with some other people. I got hit seven times, I fell down, I got back up. There were two double doors in the back, I ran out of the one on the right so I immediately went right and, I’m shot seven times through all this.”

Hudson kept running, hopped a barbed wire fence and made it to a nearby 7-Eleven convenience store.

“That’s where I was screaming for help that I was shot. I had thought I got shot once or twice, but I got shot seven times,” he said. 

While medical personnel were counting his wounds, Hudson called his dad, who he considers his best friend. “I wanted him to hear my voice,” he said, taking a few emotional breaths.

 After the interview, Hudson walked for the first time since the shooting.

Online court records show that the suspected Club Q shooter is facing multiple murder and hate crime charges. 

Anderson Aldrich is facing five counts of first degree murder and five counts of a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, according to the online docket in El Paso County Courts.

Aldrich remains hospitalized following injuries sustained during the incident, and charges have not been formally filed, Colorado Springs Police Chief told CNN on Monday. 

One of the good Samaritans in the Club Q shooting was injured during the incident, Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez told CNN Monday.

Vasquez said if not for those “hero” patrons who stopped the gunman, countless more could have been injured. 

“One of them was injured and is in the hospital, I’m waiting for an update on him,” he said, adding it was a non-life threatening injury.  

“The other individual was not injured,” he said. “They did an amazing job,” Vasquez added. 

The chief said at least five people died during the shooting and “up to 30” were injured. Vasquez said the injured number is in flux as they continue the investigation.  

“I’m being a little cautious because injuries could range from being shot to maybe falling when trying to get it out of the building — and we’re trying to really solidify those numbers,” he said. 

Colorado Springs police have not released the names of the deceased, but CNN has identified one of those killed in the Club Q shooting as Daniel Aston. His parents also confirmed his identity to a Denver newspaper.

Bartender Michael Anderson saw the gunman and ducked behind the bar where he and Aston worked as glass rained down around him, he told CNN on Monday. He thought he was going to die, said a prayer and as he moved to escape the scene, he saw two people who he didn’t know beating and kicking the gunman, he said.

Anderson was crushed to later learn Aston hadn’t made it out of the bar, which Colorado Springs’ LGBTQ community considered a safe space.

Aston, 28, was a bar supervisor at Club Q, said Anderson, who had known Aston for a few years and who considered him a friend.

“He was the best supervisor anybody could’ve asked for. He made me want to come into work, and he made me want to be a part of the positive culture we were trying to create there,” Anderson said.

He added that Aston was an “amazing person. He was a light in my life, and it’s surreal that we’re even talking about him in the past tense like this.”

Aston moved to Colorado Springs two years ago to be closer to his mother and father, parents Jeff and Sabrina Aston told The Denver Post. The club was a few minutes from their home, and after one of Daniel’s friends told them he’d been shot, they rushed to the emergency room – only to find he’d never arrived.

Daniel Aston was 4 years old when he told his mother he was a boy, and it was another decade before he came out as transgender, his mother told the newspaper. He thought himself bashful, but that wasn’t the case, she said. He never knew a stranger, even as a kid.

“He had so much more life to give to us, and to all his friends and to himself,” she told The Post.

“He always said, ‘I’m shy,’ but he wasn’t. He wrote poetry. He loved to dress up. He got into drama in high school. He’s an entertainer. That’s what he really loves.”

Barbara Poma the owner of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people were shot and killed in 2016, said her first reaction to the shooting in Colorado Springs was “not again.”

“I mean, I just thought to myself, not again. We can’t keep doing this. It was heartbreaking and It was horribly sad,” Poma said.

Poma said that she reached out to the owners of Club Q where the shooting occurred over the weekend in Colorado but she hasn’t connected with them yet.

“I’m looking to connect with them because I sadly know all too well how they’re feeling, what they’re facing. And I would just love to be a source for them,” she said.

She said that in her experience, it can be a “pretty lonely place to be sitting as the owner” of an establishment where an attack happened.

Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said on CNN Monday that the suspect in the shooting is still hospitalized and is “determined not to speak to investigators.” 

Asked about the reports that the suspect was arrested in 2021 after his mother reported to police that he allegedly threatened her with a homemade bomb, Vasquez said that she “has not been cooperative with law enforcement. “We did of course attempt to interview her. But we’re not able to do that,” he said.

“We would certainly welcome an interview with her at any time,” he said, adding that police are pursuing interviews with other people who know the suspect.

Vasquez noted that no charges have been filed against the suspect yet, but he expects that to happen soon after he is released from the hospital.

Records indicate that Anderson Lee Aldrich, the Colorado Springs mass shooting suspect, purchased both weapons brought to the attack — an AR-style rifle and a handgun, two law enforcement sources tell CNN.

CNN has not confirmed when those purchases were made.

The sources say Aldrich’s 2021 arrest over a bomb threat would not have shown up in background checks because the case was never adjudicated, the charges were dropped, and the records were sealed. It is not clear what led to the sealing of the records.

The suspect doesn’t appear to have a large social media history that would readily help pinpoint a possible motive, according to the law enforcement sources.

The Mayor of Colorado Springs, John Suthers, said the “remarkable” intervention from patrons at Club Q ultimately saved many lives.

Speaking to CNN Monday morning, Suthers said “the thing that really was remarkable was the intervention of patrons that brought this thing to a halt very quickly.”

“The first dispatch call was 11:57 p.m., police arrive at 12 a.m., by the time they’re in there at 12:02 a.m., he is subdued by patrons, and the police take him into custody,” Suthers laid out.

“We know that at least one patron was able to wrestle the gun away from him and use that gun to disable them, not by shooting them, but by hitting them, an incredible, heroic action that undoubtedly saved lives,” he added.

Investigators are already “getting a clearer picture,” as they speak to witnesses, Suthers said. “But we’ll be getting a much clearer picture over the next couple of days.”

Suthers thinks charges for the suspect will come “fairly quickly.”

“This is a community in mourning,” he said. “We are simply not going to let the actions of one single individual, regardless of what their motivations were, to define this community.”  

Mass shootings are “a thing that cities have to deal with and show their resiliency, but the only thing you can do is reach out, take care of the victims, and make sure that justice is served.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said his state has too many mass shootings.

“I do think, obviously, we’ve got to be concerned once again, to have a mass shooting Colorado,” Weiser said on CNN This Morning. “This is something that we have too much of in our state and we’re going to keep looking at how we advance gun safety.”

In 2019, Colorado passed a controversial red flag law that allows family members, a roommate, or law enforcement to petition a judge to temporality seize a person’s firearms if they are deemed a risk. 

The suspected gunman, Anderson Aldrich, was previously arrested in June 2021 in connection with a bomb threat, authorities said.

When asked why the red flag law wasn’t used in Aldrich’s case, Weiser said it was “too early to make any decisions” about this case.

“We are working hard to educate and to bring more awareness about the red flag law,” Weiser said. “When law enforcement don’t use this tool, it’s not going to perform its function.”

“I do believe officers know we have a red flag law. We need to make sure it’s top of mind and that everyone understands how it works and what the rationale and reasoning for it is. I don’t have enough information to know exactly what the officers knew,” he said. “What we can do is make sure that we embrace this as a call to action to better educate about this law to make sure that law enforcement understands it and is able to use it to protect lives.”

The suspected gunman remains hospitalized for injuries he received during the incident. “Obviously he was taken alive and there will be a full investigation and law enforcement authorities are going to be working to make sure, to bring justice, to honor the victims, and so many people who are struggling to understand how could this have happened?”

At a synagogue in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Sunday night, every room was packed with more people overflowing outside into the cold.

A pride flag was draped across the bimah, and in the crowd could be seen pride flags and Christian crosses. 

The diverse cross section of community was there to be part of a vigil for the victims of Saturday’s shooting at LGBTQ nightclub Club Q. At least five people were killed and 25 others injured when a gunman entered the club and immediately opened fire.

Aeron Laney and Justin Godwin said they left the club three minutes before the shooting. They just moved to Colorado Springs from California’s central coast a few months ago. This was their first time ever going to Club Q. 

They estimated just 30 to 35 people in total were in the club, but said no more than 50.

They found out Sunday morning what had happened, and came to the makeshift memorial that had formed outside the club.

They said you hear of things other places, but it’s hard to believe it happening where you live.

“It’s crazy that it’s here. It’s not real. It’s surreal,” Godwin said. 

“This was our safe space,” Laney said. “It felt like home.”  

The co-owners of Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, say they have reviewed surveillance video of the shooting that left at least five dead and 25 injured.

Speaking to the New York Times, Matthew Haynes and Nic Grzecka, co-owners of Club Q, said on the video they saw the heavily-armed gunman pull up wearing a military-style flak jacket. Haynes adding he used “tremendous firepower” when he entered the nightclub. 

Haynes told the newspaper the gunman had a rifle and what appeared to be six magazines of ammunition.

Once the gunman entered the building, he was quickly taken down by two people Haynes detailed.

“One customer took down the gunman and was assisted by another,” he said, adding the first person who intervened saved “dozens and dozens of lives. Stopped the man cold. Everyone else was running away, and he ran toward him.” 

Speaking to ABC, co-owner Nic Grzecka said the accused gunman, Anderson Aldrich, is not known at the club.

“He’s never spent money on a credit card or ID ever scanned in our business that we know of. I think this was a community of target for him,” Grzecka told Good Morning America.

CNN is working to contact the owners of the club.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told CNN it’s “hard to conceive” how the Club Q shooting wasn’t motived by hate.  

“This was a well-known nightclub that individuals — regardless of their sexual orientation, or gender identity — the LGBTQ community knew was a safe place, was a place where people could be their authentic selves. And someone came and essentially took all that away,” he said Monday morning.  

“We are living at a time of rising hate and rising demonization. And all of us in leadership positions have to recognize that our words matter. We can and we must have a more inclusive ‘we the people,’” Weiser said. “The legitimization of hating towards LGBTQ+ individuals has to stop. The idea that we can say to someone that they’re less than human or they don’t have a place in our society is a very dangerous road.”  

“We can and we all must recognize that everyone has a right to be their best authentic selves, to love who they love and not have to live in fear that they are going to be demonized,” he added.  

Investigators have yet to determine a motive, police say, though they are considering whether the attack was a hate crime.

The brutal attack at Club Q fell on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance – observed in honor of the lives of trans people lost to anti-trans violence and hatred – and is reminiscent of the 2016 Pulse massacre in Orlando, in which a shooter killed 49 people at the gay nightclub.

While police have not identified any victims, the parents of Daniel Aston told the Denver Post their son was killed while bartending at Club Q Saturday. Jeff and Sabrina Aston told the Post their son moved to Colorado Springs two years ago to be closer to them and got a job at the club, which is just minutes from their house.

The shooting has devastated regulars like Cole Danielson who worked as a drag king at Club Q when he first moved to Colorado Springs. Just last month, he and his wife celebrated their wedding there.

“Our safety as queer people in Colorado Springs is now questioned,” Danielson added. “I’m scared to be myself as a trans man in this community.”

Lifelong Colorado Springs resident Tiana Nicole Dykes called Club Q “a second home full of chosen family.”

“This space means the world to me. The energy, the people, the message. It’s an amazing place that didn’t deserve this tragedy,” said Dykes, who has close friends who were critically injured and died in the shooting. Dykes says the shock of the attack only gets worse with time.

Antonio Taylor, a drag queen and Colorado Springs resident, said Club Q and its welcoming community helped them feel ready to come out.

“This was one of the places where I didn’t have to worry about looks or people hating me for who I am,” they said, adding, “I’m sick to my stomach that the one place where I knew I was safe has been made unsafe.”

Taylor was set to perform at the club’s Musical Drag Brunch on Sunday but the attack forced Club Q to shut its doors indefinitely.

Jewels Parks, who has been in the Colorado drag scene for over a year, often performs at Club Q under her drag name Dezzy Dazzles and considers the venue a space where the outside world’s cruelty was not welcome.

“Club Q, along with all of the other LGBTQIA+ bars, represent a safe space for a community that has felt unsafe and rejected for most of their lives,” Parks told CNN.

“To have our safe place ripped from us and to lose members of our community, is a whole other type of hurt,” Parks said. “Right now we need to love each other a little extra and be kind to one another.”

Michael Anderson was bartending on Saturday night when a gunman opened fire on Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, he told CNN Monday morning. 

Anderson said shortly before midnight he heard a few pops and looked up.

“I saw the outline of a man holding a rifle at the entrance of the club, just probably about 15 feet from me,” he said on CNN This Morning.   

Once Anderson registered what was happening, he quickly ducked behind the bar and hid from the gunman. 

“There was a moment in time where I feared I was not going to make it out of that club alive and I have never prayed so sincerely and quickly in my life as I did in that moment,” Anderson said.  

Anderson told CNN he thought he was going to die. “I was anticipating that outcome and afraid for that outcome. It got quiet as I was praying and hoping it got silent. The gunshots stopped,” he said.

Anderson, who was still tucked behind the bar made the decision to get out of the club – so he stood up. “I saw what I believe was probably the gunman lying on the ground, getting beat up and kicked and yelled at by two very brave people.” 

“I still don’t know the identity of those two people — but I hope I can find out one day because I truly believe those two people saved my life,” he said. 

Anderson knew Daniel Aston, who was killed during the incident. “He was the bar supervisor and he was the best supervisor anybody could have asked for. He made me want to come into work and he made me want to just be a part of the positive culture we were trying to create there,” Anderson told CNN.

“He was an amazing person. He was a light in my life. And it’s still surreal that we’re even talking about him in the past tense like this,” he added.

Watch here:

Video Ad Feedback

fcf8b10e-3516-4f74-ac70-ba6fe94a23ba.mp4

01:24 - Source: cnn

Just moments before midnight Saturday, a gunman entered Club Q, a beloved LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and immediately began shooting into the crowd, killing 5 people and injuring 25 others, according to police.

The suspected shooter was identified as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said Sunday.

A long rifle was used in the shooting, according to the police chief. Two firearms were recovered at the scene.

Police said Sunday they are investigating the suspect’s history, though they declined to share details.

Aldrich was arrested in June 2021 in connection with a bomb threat that led to a standoff 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 law enforcement sources confirmed the suspect in Saturday’s shooting and the bomb threat were the same person based on his name and date of birth.

Video obtained by CNN shows Aldrich surrendering to law enforcement last year after allegedly making a bomb threat. Footage from the Ring door camera of the owner of the home shows Aldrich exiting the house with his hands up and barefoot, and walking to sheriff’s deputies.

Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report by the man’s mother that he was “threatening to cause harm to her with a homemade bomb, multiple weapons, and ammunition,” according to the release. Deputies called the suspect, and he “refused to comply with orders to surrender,” the release said, leading them to evacuate nearby homes.

Several hours after the initial police call, the sheriff’s crisis negotiations unit was able to get Aldrich to leave the house, and he was arrested after walking out the front door. Authorities did not find any explosives in the home.

Leslie Bowman, who owns the house where Aldrich’s mother lived, provided CNN the videos. Bowman said Aldrich’s mother rented a room in the house for a little over a year and that Aldrich would come visit his mother there.

Attempts by CNN to reach Aldrich’s mother for comment were unsuccessful.

It is 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 pursued in the case. The district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment from CNN.

Aldrich also called the Gazette in an attempt to get an earlier story about the 2021 incident removed from the website, the newspaper reported.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis ordered flags lowered to half-staff on all public buildings statewide from sunrise Monday morning until sunset on Saturday “to honor and remember the victims of the horrific shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs,” according to a news release. 

“Flags will be lowered for 5 days to remember each of the 5 individuals who lost their lives in this senseless tragedy,” the release said.

“To further honor and remember the victims and those injured in this tragedy, the Polis-Primavera administration will also be flying the Pride flag at the Colorado state capitol for the next five days,” the press release added.