Detective: Colorado Springs club shooter ran neo-Nazi site

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The 22-year-old accused of carrying out the deadly mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs in November ran a neo-Nazi website and used gay and racial slurs while gaming online, a police detective testified Wednesday.

Anderson Lee Aldrich also posted an image of a rifle scope trained on a gay pride parade and used a bigoted slur when referring to someone who was gay, Detective Rebecca Joines said.

Her testimony came at the start of a hearing that will determine if there’s enough evidence to warrant that Aldrich face hate crime charges, in addition to other charges including murder and attempted murder.

Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns they and them, administered the obscure website that included what Joines described as a “neo-Nazi white supremacist” shooting training video glorifying mass shootings. The video, which she said was not created by Aldrich and has been posted online by many others, featured attacks on synagogues and mosques in Europe and the 2019 shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Joines said she believes Aldrich was trying to emulate those attacks in the Colorado Springs shooting.

Investigators also heard from an acquaintance that Aldrich said their mother, Laura Voepel, is nonbinary and forced them to go to LGBTQ clubs, Joines testified during the hearing, which is expected to conclude Thursday.

Hate crime charges require prosecutors to present evidence of a motive — that Aldrich was driven by bias, either wholly or in part.

The defense countered that Aldrich was not anti-LGBTQ , but was high on multiple drugs, was sleep deprived and came from an abusive family.