Two firearms, including a “long rifle,” were found at Club Q after the shooting Saturday night, Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said.
Investigators were still determining a motive and the attack was being investigated to see if it should be prosecuted as a hate crime, El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen said. Charges against the suspect “will likely include first-degree murder,” he said.
A 22-year-old gunman opened fire inside a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs. (AP) At least five people have been confirmed dead so far. (AP)
Police identified the gunman as Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was in custody and being treated for injuries.
A man by that name was arrested in 2021 after his mother reported he threatened her with a homemade bomb and other weapons, authorities said.
They declined to give further details about that arrest.
No explosives were found, authorities said at the time, and The Gazette in Colorado Springs reported that prosecutors did not file charges and that records were sealed.
Authorities were called to Club Q at 11.57pm on Saturday with a report of a shooting, and the first officer arrived at midnight.
Joshua Thurman said he was at the club with about two dozen other people and was dancing when the shots started.
At first he thought it was part of the music until he heard another shot and said he saw the flash of a gun.
Police identified the gunman as Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was in custody and being treated for injuries. (AP)
Thurman, 34, said he ran with another person into a locker room where someone was already hiding.
They locked the door, turned off the lights and fell to the ground, but could hear the violence unfolding, including the beating of the gunman, he added.
“I could have lost my life, why? What was the purpose?” she said as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“We were just enjoying ourselves. We weren’t hurting anybody.
“We were in our space, in our community, in our home, enjoying ourselves like everyone else.”
The gunman was confronted by “at least two heroic people” who stopped the shooting, Vasquez said.
“We owe them a great debt of gratitude,” he added.
Of the 25 injured, some were in critical condition. Officials said some were injured trying to flee.
In a statement on social media, Club Q said it was “devastated by the senseless attack on our community”. (Facebook)
The shooting revived memories of the 2016 massacre at gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida, which killed 49 people.
Colorado has seen several mass killings, including at Columbine High School in 1999, a movie theater in suburban Denver in 2012 and a Boulder supermarket last year.
It was the sixth mass killing this month and came in a year when the nation was rocked by the deaths of 21 people in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Club Q is a gay and lesbian nightclub that offers a “Drag Diva Drag Show” on Saturdays, according to its website.
Club Q’s Facebook page said planned entertainment included a “punk and alternative show” before a birthday dance party, with a “brunch for all ages” on Sunday.
Drag events have become the focus of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and protests recently, as opponents, including politicians, have proposed banning them for children, falsely claiming they are used to “groom” children .
Attorney General Merrick Garland was briefed on the shooting, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said.
The FBI said it was assisting, but said the police department was leading the investigation.
Crime tape sets up near a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs after a mass shooting. (AP) Police were called just before midnight Saturday. (CNN)
President Joe Biden said that while the motive for the shootings was still unclear, “we know that the LGBTQI+ community has been subjected to horrific hate violence in recent years.”
“Places that are supposed to be safe spaces of acceptance and celebration should never become places of terror and violence, but that happens all too often,” he said.
“We must eliminate the inequalities that contribute to violence against LGBTQI+ people. We cannot and must not tolerate hate.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who became the first openly gay man in the United States to be elected governor in 2018, called the shooting “sickening.”
Democratic Representative Adam Schiff of California said on Twitter that he was “sickened and appalled” by the shooting.
“The LGBTQ+ community is once again the target of the most horrific violence,” he said.
“And devastating attacks like these will only become more common if we don’t react. It has to stop.”
Representative-elect Eric Sorensen, who is Illinois’ first openly gay congressman, tweeted that “we must use strong voices to fight hate.”
“Our country must reject the hateful rhetoric directed at our LGBTQ community,” he said.
In June, 31 members of the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and charged with conspiracy to riot at a Pride event.
Experts warned that extremist groups could see the anti-gay rhetoric as a call to action.
The previous month, a fundamentalist pastor in Idaho told his small congregation in Boise that gay, lesbian and transgender people should be executed by the government, which aligned with similar sermons by a fundamentalist pastor in Texas.