LGBTQ club shooting eyed as hate crime
COLORADO SPRINGS: A 22-year-old man was facing murder and potential hate crime charges on Monday after a shooting rampage at an LGBTQ nightclub in the western US city of Colorado Springs that left five people dead and at least 18 others injured.
Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was overpowered by patrons after opening fire in the club on Saturday night, is currently hospitalised while awaiting formal charges, police chief Adrian Vasquez said.
District Attorney Michael Allen said he expects first-degree murder charges to be filed and “if the evidence supports bias-motivated crimes, we will charge that as well”.
“There’s obviously some evidence,” Mr Allen told CNN. “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 that we can use,” he said.
John Suthers, the mayor of Colorado Springs, told NBC’s Today show that while the motive was still under investigation, “it certainly has the trappings of a hate crime”.
GLAAD, an LGBTQ advocacy organisation, noted that the shooting at Club Q came on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honours victims of transphobic attacks, and amid an uptick in hostility against the LGBTQ community in the United States.
“You can draw a straight line from the false and vile rhetoric about LGBTQ people spread by extremists and amplified across social media, to the nearly 300 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year, to the dozens of attacks on our community like this one,” GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis said.
Colorado Representative Brianna Titone, an openly transgender state legislator, also singled out antiLGBTQ rhetoric.
“When politicians and pundits keep perpetuating tropes, insults, and misinformation about the trans and LGBTQ+ community, this is a result,” Ms Titone tweeted.
The attack was the deadliest on the LGBTQ community in the United States since a 2016 mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida that claimed 49 lives.
Transgender rights were a hot-button issue in the United States leading up to midterm elections earlier this month, with Republicans putting forward a slew of legislative proposals to restrict them.
Mr Suthers said the gunman was overpowered in an “incredible act of heroism” by patrons of the club.
“Two, but primarily one as I understand it, are able to take a handgun that he’s got in his possession, take it away from him and use that weapon, not by shooting it, but by hitting him and disabling him,” he said. “That act probably saved a lot of lives, there’s no question about that.”
Colorado Springs police said five people were killed and 18 injured, 17 with gunshot wounds.
Another victim was at the scene with “no visible injuries”.
Police had previously said up to 30 people were injured.