Police have identified the suspect in Saturday night’s deadly attack on an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado as Anderson Lee Aldrich, a 22-year-old with previous run-ins with the law.
Aldrich is accused of firing on patrons at Club Q in Colorado Springs, killing at least five and injuring at least 18. He had previously been arrested in June 2021 for making multiple bomb threats and refusing to surrender to police.
Police received reports from Aldrich’s mother on June 18, 2021, stating that Aldrich was “threatening to cause harm to her with a homemade bomb, multiple weapons, and ammunition,” according to the El Paso Sheriff’s Department.
His mother, who police did not identify by name, told authorities she was not sure where her son was. Police investigated and discovered he was holed up inside a nearby home. They contacted Aldrich by phone, but he refused to surrender.
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Officers were eventually able to get Aldrich to comply, however, and he walked out of the home into police custody. Officers searched both his mother’s home and the home Aldrich had been in but found no evidence of explosives.
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Aldrich was charged with two counts of felony menacing, and three counts of first-degree kidnapping for the incident. The El Paso Sheriff’s Office, which handled his arrest, did not release a mug shot from the incident and did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News Digital.
Aldrich has now been taken into custody for the shooting at Club Q. Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez says at least two “heroic” patrons were able to subdue Aldrich just before police arrived. He has since been transferred to a local hospital for treatment.
The investigation is in its early stages, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is on the scene to assist. Officials have not determined whether the attack constituted a hate crime. Many have nevertheless concluded the shooting was motivated by anti-LGBTQ bias, including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).
“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’s president and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, said in a statement to the Denver Post.
Club Q described the incident as a “hate attack” in a statement, bud did not respond to a request for clarification from Fox News Digital.
