Suspect in bar shooting faces murder, hate charges
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The man suspected of opening fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs was being held on murder and hate crime charges Monday, two days after the attack that killed five people and left 17 others with gunshot wounds.
Online court records showed that 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich faces five murder charges and five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury in Saturday night's attack at Club Q. He remained hospitalized with unspecified injuries, police said.
Police have identified the deceased victims as Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh and Derrick Rump.
The charges were preliminary, and prosecutors had not filed them in court. The hate crime charges would require proving that the gunman was motivated by bias, such as against the victims' actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
The attack was halted when a patron grabbed a handgun from Aldrich, hit him with it and pinned him down until police arrived minutes later.
A man who said he helped subdue the gunman said he was at the club with his family when the attack happened.
Richard Fierro injured his hands, knees and ankle while stopping the shooter, according to a Facebook post Monday by the brewery that Fierro operates with his wife. Fierro's daughter hurt her knee as she ran for cover, and her boyfriend was killed, the post said.
Fierro, who served for 15 years in the military, including four combat deployments as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, told the New York Times that he “just went into combat mode.”
Court documents laying out what led to Aldrich's arrest have been sealed at the request of prosecutors, who said releasing details could jeopardize the investigation.
A law enforcement official said the suspect used an AR-15style semi-automatic weapon, and a handgun and additional ammunition magazines also were recovered.
Officials on Monday clarified that 18 people were hurt in the attack, not 25 as they said originally. Among them was one person whose injury was not a gunshot wound. Another victim had no visible injuries, they said.
Thirteen people remained hospitalized Monday, officials said. Five people have been treated and released.
Mayor John Suthers said there was “reason to hope” all of the hospitalized victims would recover.
The assault quickly raised questions about why authorities did not seek to take Aldrich's guns away from him in 2021, when he was arrested after his mother reported he threatened her with a homemade bomb and other weapons.
Though authorities at the time said no explosives were found, gun-control advocates have asked why police didn't use Colorado's “red flag” laws to seize the weapons his mother says he had.