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regular-article-logo Saturday, 23 November 2024

Colorado: Gay bar shooting suspect faces charges

A law enforcement official said the suspect used an AR15-style semi-automatic weapon in Saturday night’s attack, but a handgun and additional ammunition magazines also were recovered

AP/PTI Colorado Springs Published 22.11.22, 01:12 AM
Mourners at a service for the victims of the fatal shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Sunday.

AP/PTI

The man suspected of killing five people and injuring others at a gay bar in Colorado Springs is facing murder and hate crime charges, according to online court records obtained on Monday.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, faces five murder charges and five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, the records show.

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A law enforcement official said the suspect used an AR15-style semi-automatic weapon in Saturday night’s attack, but a handgun and additional ammunition magazines also were recovered.

The official could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Information on a lawyer who could speak on Aldrich’s behalf wasn’t immediately available Monday.

Club Q on its Facebook page thanked the “quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack”.

Already questions were being raised about why authorities didn’t seek to take Aldrich’s guns away from him in 2021 when he was arrested after his mother reported he threatened her with a homemade bomb and other weapons.

Though authorities at the time said no explosives were found, gun control advocates are asking why police didn’t try to trigger Colorado’s “red flag” law, which would have allowed authorities to seize the weapons his mother says he had.

There’s also no public record that prosecutors ever moved forward with felony kidnapping and menacing charges against Aldrich.

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