A 22-year-old man opened fire at a gay club in Colorado Springs, killing five people and injuring 18 others before being stopped by “heroic” Club Q patrons.

The shooting brought back memories of the 2016 massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, which killed 49 people and remained the second-deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

According to police, at least two firearms, including a “long rifle” used during the shooting, were discovered at Club Q following the Saturday night attack.

The club described it as a “hate attack” on its Facebook page. El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen said investigators were still determining a motive and whether to charge it as a hate crime. The suspect’s charges “will almost certainly include first-degree murder,” he said.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, the gunman, was arrested and treated for his injuries, according to police.

Authorities said a man with that name was arrested in 2021 after his mother reported that he threatened her with a homemade bomb and other weapons. They declined to comment further on the arrest.

Shots Fired Club Q Gay Club

Authorities stated at the time that no explosives were discovered, and The Gazette in Colorado Springs reported that prosecutors did not pursue any charges and that records were sealed.

The first officer arrived at Club Q gay club at midnight after authorities were called at 11:57 p.m. Saturday with a shooting report.

Joshua Thurman said he was dancing in the club with about a dozen other people when the shots started. He initially mistook it for music until he heard another shot and saw the flash of a gun muzzle.

Thurman, 34, claimed he and another person dashed to a dressing room where someone was already hiding. They locked the door, turned off the lights, and sat on the floor, but he added they could hear the gunman being beaten up.

“What could I have lost my life for?” “What was the point?” he wondered, tears streaming down his cheeks. “We were just having a good time.” We weren’t out to hurt anyone. We were in our space, community, and home, having fun like everyone else.”

Gay Club Patrons fought the gunman.

According to Police Chief Adrian Vasquez, the gunman was confronted by “at least two heroic people” who fought and subdued the suspect.

“We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude,” he added. According to Vasquez, detectives were also looking into whether anyone had assisted Aldrich before the attack.

Police did not provide additional information about the other guns discovered at the scene.

Authorities reported that seven of the 25 injured were in critical condition. Some were injured while fleeing, and it was unclear whether all of the victims were shot, according to a police spokesperson.

The shooting brought back memories of the 2016 massacre at Orlando’s Pulse gay nightclub, which killed 49 people. Colorado has seen several mass shootings, including one at Columbine High School in 1999, another at a movie theatre in suburban Denver in 2012, and another at a Boulder supermarket last year.

It was the sixth mass killing this month, and it came just a year after the deaths of 21 people in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

According to its website, Club Q Gay Club is a gay and lesbian nightclub with a Saturday drag show. According to the Gay Club’s Facebook page, planned entertainment includes a “punk and alternative show” before a birthday dance party and a Sunday all-ages drag brunch.

Drag events have recently become a focal point of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and protests, with opponents, including politicians, proposing banning children from attending, falsely claiming they are used to “groom” children.

The FBI assisted police with their investigation, and Attorney General Merrick Garland was briefed on the shooting.

While the motive for the shootings was not immediately clear, President Joe Biden stated, “we know that the LGBTQI+ community has been subjected to horrific hate violence in recent years.”

Hate Can not Be Tolerated.

“Places that should be safe havens of acceptance and celebration should never be turned into havens of terror and violence,” he said. “Hate cannot and must not be tolerated.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, the first openly gay man elected governor in the United States, called the shooting “sickening.”

“My heart breaks for the families and friends of those who have died, been injured, or have been traumatized,” Polis said. “As we mourn, Colorado stands with our LGTBQ community and everyone affected by this tragedy.”

A makeshift memorial appeared near the club on Sunday, with flowers, a stuffed animal, candles, and a sign that read “Love over hate” next to a rainbow-coloured heart.

Seth Stang was on his way to buy flowers for the memorial when he learned that two of the deceased were his friends. The 34-year-old transgender man described it as “having a bucket of hot water dumped on you.” I’m just tired of running out of safe places to live.”

Ryan Johnson, who lived nearby and was there last month, said it was one of only two LGBTQ nightspots in conservative-leaning Colorado Springs. “It’s kind of the go-to for pride,” the 26-year-old said of the gay club, hidden behind a bowling alley and a sandwich shop.

Colorado Springs, a city of approximately 480,000 people located 70 miles (112 kilometres) south of Denver, is home to the United States Air Force Academy, the United States Olympic Training Center, and Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical Christian ministry that opposes LGBTQ rights. The shooting, according to the group, “exposes the evil and wickedness inside the human heart.”

Three people were killed, and eight were injured at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the city in November 2015, when authorities say a gunman targeted the clinic because it performed abortions.

“The senseless attack on our community has devastated Club Q,” the club said on Facebook. “We appreciate the quick actions of heroic customers who subdued the gunman and brought this hate attack to an end.”

Kevin Jennings of Lambda Legal, the CEO of a national LGBTQ-rights organization, has called for stricter gun laws.

“America’s toxic mix of bigotry and absurdly easy access to firearms means that such events are all too common, and LGBTQ+ people, BIPOC communities, the Jewish community, and other vulnerable populations pay the price for our political leadership’s failure to act time and time again,” he said in a statement.

The shooting occurred during Transgender Awareness Week, just before Sunday’s International Transgender Day of Remembrance, when events are held worldwide to mourn and remember transgender people who have died due to violence.

In June, 31 members of the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front were arrested and charged with conspiracy to riot at a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Experts have warned that anti-gay rhetoric could be interpreted as a call to action by extremist groups.

A fundamentalist Idaho pastor told his small Boise congregation the previous month that gay, lesbian, and transgender people should be executed by the government, echoing similar sermons from a Texas fundamentalist pastor.

According to The Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the United States, there have been 523 and 2,727 deaths since 2006.

Below is a list of other recent high-profile mass shootings:

– RALEIGH – Oct. 13, 2022 – In North Carolina, a 15-year-old shot and killed five people and was apprehended after a manhunt.

– HIGHLAND PARK – July 4, 2022 – In Illinois, a man perched on a rooftop during a Fourth of July parade and killed seven people and wounded dozens more.

– UVALDE, May 25, 2022 – A gunman opened fire at an elementary school in a South Texas town, killing 19 students and two teachers. Police from several agencies gathered outside the classroom and waited more than an hour before a U.S. Border Patrol team entered the classroom and shot the suspect dead.

– LAGUNA WOODS, May 15 – A gunman killed a doctor and wounded five other people at a Taiwanese American church banquet in California in what officials called a methodically planned attack because the shooter was upset over Chinese-Taiwanese tensions.

– BUFFALO, May 14, 2022 – A white gunman killed 10 Black people inside a supermarket in a racially motivated attack. He was charged and remained in jail without bail.

– NEW YORK CITY, April 12, 2022 – In one of the most violent attacks in the history of New York’s transit system, 23 people were wounded when a 62-year-old man activated a smoke bomb and opened fire in a subway. He was taken into custody the next day.

– OXFORD, Nov. 30, 2021 – Four students were killed, and seven others were wounded after a teenager opened fire at a high school in Oxford, Michigan.

– INDIANAPOLIS, April 16, 2021 – A former FedEx employee who had been under psychiatric care shot eight people dead and injured several others at an Indiana facility of the shipping company before taking his own life.

– LOS ANGELES, March 31, 2021 – Four people were killed, one of them a child, in a shooting at an office building in suburban Los Angeles before the suspect was taken into custody.

– BOULDER, March 22, 2021 – A mass shooting at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, killed 10 people, including a police officer.

– ATLANTA, March 16, 2021 – Eight people, including six women of Asian descent, was shot dead in a string of attacks at day spas in and around Atlanta. A male suspect was arrested.

– MILWAUKEE, Feb. 26, 2020 – A gunman opened fire at the Molson Coors Beverage Co brewing complex in Milwaukee, killing five co-workers before he committed suicide.

– DAYTON, Aug. 4, 2019 – A gunman dressed in body armour opened fire in downtown Dayton, Ohio, killing nine people, including his sister. Police killed the shooter.

– EL PASO, Aug. 3, 2019 – A man fatally shot 22 people at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. A statement believed to have been written by the suspect called the attack “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” Authorities arrested the shooter.

– VIRGINIA BEACH, May 31, 2019 – A disgruntled public utility employee opened fire on co-workers at a municipal building in Virginia, killing 12 people before police fatally shot him.

– AURORA, Feb. 15, 2019 – A man opened fire at an Illinois factory after being fired, killing five workers before being slain by police.

– THOUSAND OAKS, Nov. 7, 2018 – A former Marine combat veteran killed 12 people in a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. He then killed himself.

– PITTSBURGH, Oct. 27, 2018 – A gunman burst into the Tree of Life synagogue near Pittsburgh and fired on congregants gathered for a Sabbath service, killing 11.

– SANTA FE, May 18, 2018 – A 17-year-old student opened fire at his high school outside Houston, Texas, killing nine students and a teacher before surrendering to officers.

– PARKLAND, Feb. 14, 2018 – A former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 students and educators.

– SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Nov. 5, 2017 – A man thrown out of the U.S. Air Force for beating his wife and child shot 26 people fatally at a rural Texas church where his in-laws worshipped before killing himself.

– LAS VEGAS, Oct. 1, 2017 – A gunman opened fire on a country music festival from a 32nd-floor hotel suite, killing 60 people before taking his own life.

– ORLANDO, June 12, 2016 – A gunman fatally shot 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub, before he was shot dead by police.

– SAN BERNARDINO, Dec. 2, 2015 – A husband and wife killed 14 people at a workplace holiday party in San Bernardino in Southern California before dying in a shootout with police.

– ROSEBURG, Oct 1, 2015 – A gunman stalked onto an Oregon college campus and opened fire, killing nine people before police shot him to death.

– CHARLESTON, June 17, 2015 – A white supremacist killed nine Black churchgoers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. He was sentenced to death.

– WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2013 – A former Navy reservist working as a government contractor killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard. He was shot dead by police.

– NEWTOWN, Dec. 14, 2012 – A gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children from five- to 10 years old, in a rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

– AURORA, July 20, 2012 – A masked gunman killed 12 people at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado. He received multiple life sentences.

– FORT HOOD, Nov. 5, 2009 – An army major and psychiatrist opened fire at Fort Hood, a U.S. Army base in Texas, killing 13 people.

VOR News