The heroic actions of one patron saved lives.
A horrific shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs has left the LGBTQ community reeling. Here’s what we know so far about the attack — and why some believe the rise in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is to blame.
What happened in Colorado Springs?
Minutes before midnight on Saturday, a gunman wearing body armor opened fire with a long gun inside Club Q. At least five people were killed and 19 injured. Authorities identified the victims as Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, and Derrick Rump.
Joshua Thurman, 34, said he was on the dance floor when the shooting began and took shelter in a dressing room at the back of the bar. When he emerged, he “saw bodies,” he told the New York Times.
“There was broken glass, blood — I lost friends,” he said.
Officers quickly took the suspect, who was also injured, into custody. The FBI is involved in the investigation.
A bystander’s quick-thinking may have “saved dozens”
Many more people could have been killed if not for the actions of one bystander, who subdued the gunman, grabbed a handgun from him, and hit him with it, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers told the NYT.
“He saved dozens and dozens of lives,” one owner of Club Q said at a vigil Sunday. “Stopped the man cold. Everyone else was running away and he ran toward him.”
The Times tracked down the patron, who they identified as Richard Fierro. The 45-year-old Army veteran said he was at the club with his wife, daughter, and friends to watch a drag show when the shooting began. He told the Times that when he heard the gunfire, his instincts from 15 years of service kicked in. He charged through the club, tackled the gunman, and began beating him with a pistol he found on the shooter.
“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Fierro said. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”
As Fierro pinned the shooter to the ground, he yelled for other bystanders to help him. He said one man grabbed the suspect’s rifle while a dancer dressed in drag stomped on the gunman in high heels.
By the time police arrived, Fierro was covered in blood, and officers tackled him and placed him in handcuffs. Fierro told the Times he was held in a police car for over an hour, all the while pleading to be released so he could return to his family. The vet has been awarded the Bronze Star twice and is the owner of a local brewery, Atrevida Beer Co.
“This whole thing was a lot, my daughter and wife should’ve 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,” Fierro later told CNN, tearing up. “I tried. I tried to help everybody in there.”
“I don’t want to ever do this,” he added, of using his combat skills. “I was done doing this stuff, it was too much,” he said. “It lives in you. If you actually do this stuff, it’s in you … I’m not a GI Joe, I’m just a normal guy.”
Fierro’s daughter’s boyfriend, 22-year-old Raymond Green Vance, was among those shot dead, he said.
“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,” Vance’s family said in a statement per CNN.
What’s known about the suspect?
Police identified the suspect as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich. One of Club Q’s owners told NYT that, to their knowledge, Aldrich had never visited the club before.
He faces five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of a bias-motivated crime causing bodily harm.
A judge has granted the prosecution’s request to seal court records related to Aldrich’s case until the investigation has been completed. However several media outlets have reported that a man with the same name and age was arrested in June 2021 after threatening to hurt his mother with a homemade bomb. That man was charged with felony menacing and kidnapping. But police haven’t confirmed that the suspected shooter and the man arrested last year are one and the same.
Police also declined to comment on a possible motive.
The rise in anti-LGBTQ hate speech
When news of the shooting broke, many in the LGBTQ community and beyond suspected that the gunman was motivated by hate.
Club Q wrote on Facebook that it was “devastated by the senseless attack on our community.”
The shooting is sadly reminiscent of the 2016 attack on Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, in which 49 people were killed and 53 others were injured. Saturday night’s shooting also took place on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors the victims of anti-trans violence. The day has been recognized since 1999, after the death of Rita Hester, a Black trans woman who was stabbed to death in her apartment. According to a report released last week by the Human Rights Campaign, at least 32 transgender and gender non-conforming people were killed in 2022.
The shooting in Colorado Springs also comes amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation: Bills aimed at restricting gender-affirming health care, preventing trans kids from playing on sports teams, and legislation seeking to limit discussion of LGBTQ in schools are being passed in states across the U.S. And 13 states have signed anti-LGBTQ bills into law this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Anti-gay rhetoric has also intensified — and experts have warned that extremists may view that as a call to action, the Associated Press reports.
“There is a very clear relationship between normalizing this hateful content and having extremist groups try to mobilize around that in hateful actions,” Sophie Bjork-James, a Vanderbilt professor studying the white nationalist movement, told the AP. “We can see a direct relationship between the spectrum of anti-LGBT rhetoric from statehouses into these extremist groups.”
How to help victims of the Club Q shooting
The preferred donation site for victims of Saturday’s shooting is the Colorado Healing Fund, Club Q said on its Facebook page. The fund was established in 2018 specifically to support victims of mass shootings in Colorado, a state which has unfortunately suffered a shocking number of similar tragedies.
