Club ‘slayer’s bid for infamy
The person accused of massacring five people in a Colorado Springs nightclub warned his family that he wanted to be “the next mass killer” before the shooting, newly revealed documents showed, as the alleged shooter appeared dazed and bloodied in their first court appearance Wednesday.
Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they-them pronouns, had been arrested in 2021 after they whined that their grandparents’ plans to move down south would ruin a plot to build a bomb big enough to blow up a police department or federal building, according to records from a previous arrest obtained by KKTV in Colorado Springs.
The results of that case are sealed and charges may have been dismissed, reports said.
The revelation about the prior arrest came as Aldrich appeared visibly disoriented in a video court hearing, cuffed and slouched, with a face a mess of bruises and swelling.
During the short hearing,
Aldrich slouched in a chair, with head slumped and resting on a shoulder as if asleep.
The accused donned an orange jail jumpsuit and only responded weakly when prompted by one of two attorneys in El Paso County Jail.
Charges likely
Aldrich will likely be slapped with murder and hate-crime raps, but formal charges have yet to be filed and court records about the arrest have been sealed at the request of prosecutors. Defense attorneys requested to see the records.
Aldrich’s court appearance came a day after they were released from a hospital. Mugshots released Wednesday also showed the battered face of the accused killer, who was beaten and restrained by patrons after opening fire in LGBTQ bar Club Q in Colorado Springs on Saturday.
Aldrich was living with grandparents on June 18, 2021, when they dropped the news of their pending move.
The grandmother later told cops Aldrich spoke of “going to be the next mass killer and has been collecting ammunition, firearms, bullet-proof body armor and storing it in the basement of the residence.”
The grandchild had bragged about wanting to “go out in a blaze” and had started making what the grandmother believed was a bomb, according to the records obtained by KKTV.
They went to Aldrich’s mother’s house nearby, where cops later swarmed.
When a SWAT team showed up to the residence, Aldrich’s mother came out of the home saying, “He let me go.”