‘Next mass killer’: Dropped case foretold Colorado bloodbath
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Anderson Lee Aldrich loaded bullets into a Glock pistol and chugged vodka, ominously warning frightened grandparents not to stand in the way of an elaborate plan to stockpile guns, ammo, body armor and a homemade bomb to become “the next mass killer.”
“You guys die today and I’m taking you with me,” they quoted Aldrich as saying. “I’m loaded and ready.”
So began a day of terror Aldrich unleashed in June 2021 that, according to sealed law enforcement documents verified by The Associated Press, brought SWAT teams and the bomb squad to a normally quiet Colorado Springs neighborhood, forced the grandparents to flee for their lives and prompted the evacuation of 10 nearby homes to escape a possible bomb blast. It culminated in a standoff that the then-21-year-old livestreamed on Facebook, showing Aldrich in tactical gear inside the mother’s home and threatening officers outside — “If they breach, I’m a f——ing blow it to holy hell!” — before finally surrendering.
But charges against Aldrich for the actions that day were dropped for reasons the district attorney has refused to explain due to the case being sealed and there was no record showing guns were seized under Colorado’s “red flag” law with similarly no explanation from the sheriff. All of it could be one of the most glaring missed warnings in America’s litany of mass violence because, just a year and a half later, Aldrich was free to carry out the plan to become “the next mass killer.”
Clad in body armor and carrying an AR-15-style rifle, Aldrich entered the Club Q gay nightclub just before midnight on Nov. 19 and opened fire, authorities say, killing five people and wounding 17 others before an Army veteran wrestled the attacker to the ground.
“It makes no sense,” said Jerecho Loveall, a former Club Q dancer who is recovering from a wound to the leg from one of the high-powered rounds. “If they would have taken this more seriously and done their job, the lives we lost, the injuries we sustained and the trauma this community has faced would not have happened.”
“It was absolutely preventable,” said Wyatt Kent, who held the hand of a woman as she bled to death on top of him, and who also lost his partner that night. “Even if charges aren’t filed for a bomb threat, maybe you’re not mentally sound enough to own a firearm.”
Why apparently nothing was done to stop Aldrich since coming onto law enforcement’s radar last year is a question that has haunted this picturesque Rockies city of 480,000 since the shooting, even as loved ones have begun burying the victims and the shuttered Club Q has become a shrine surrounded by hundreds of bouquets, wreaths and rainbow flags.
Criminal defense lawyers with whom AP shared the law enforcement documents say they questioned why charges were not pursued in the 2021 incident given the grandparents’ detailed statements, a tense standoff at the mother’s home and a subsequent house search that found bomb-making materials that Aldrich claimed had enough firepower to blow up an entire police department and a federal building.
The documents were obtained by Colorado Springs TV station KKTV and verified as authentic to AP by a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the sealed case and kept anonymous. Documents also included a judge’s order to jail Aldrich on $1 million bond and a listing by District Attorney Michael Allen of seven offenses “committed, or triable,” including three felony counts of kidnapping and two of menacing.
For his part, Allen has repeatedly declined to comment on why those charges didn’t go forward, citing a Colorado law that automatically seals records in cases when charges are dropped and requires him to not even acknowledge the records exist. The law was passed three years ago as part of a nationwide movement to help prevent people from having their lives ruined if cases are dismissed and never prosecuted.
And even though Allen said during a news conference soon after the nightclub shooting that he “hoped at some point in the near future” to share more about the 2021 incident, he has yet to do so. AP and other news organizations have gone to court seeking to unseal the entire case file, a request scheduled to be heard later this week.