The man suspected of killing five people and injuring others at a Colorado Springs gay bar on Saturday night faces murder and hate crime charges, according to online court records obtained Monday .
Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, faces five counts of murder and five counts of causing bodily harm in a bias-motivated crime, records show.
A law enforcement official said the suspect used an AR-15 type semi-automatic weapon in the attack last Saturday night, but a handgun and additional ammo clips were also used. were found.
The “Q Club” thanked on its Facebook page for the “quick reactions of the heroic customers who subdued the shooter and put an end to this hateful attack”.
Questions also arose as to why authorities in 2021 did not attempt to remove Aldrich’s weapons when he was arrested after his mother reported that he had threatened her with a gun. homemade bomb and other weapons.
Authorities said at the time that no explosives were found, but gun control advocates question why police didn’t try to invoke Colorado’s ‘red flag’ law then. , which would have allowed the authorities to seize the weapons mentioned by his mother. No court records indicate that a prosecutor filed kidnapping or threatening charges against Aldrich at the time.
Of the 25 injured at Club Q, at least seven were in critical condition, authorities said. Some were also injured trying to flee, and it was unclear whether they had all been shot, a police spokesman said.
The shooting brought back memories of the 2016 massacre at gay nightclub “Pulse” in Orlando, Florida, which left 49 people dead. Colorado has seen several shootings, including at Columbine High School in 1999, at a suburban Denver movie theater in 2012 and at a Boulder supermarket last year.
It was the sixth killing this month in the United States. Six months ago, the country was moved by the death of 21 people, including 19 children, in a school in Uvalde, Texas.