CO Nightclub Killer Had Record of Threats, Previous Charges Dropped

Authorities have named Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, as the lone suspect in the deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Saturday night that left five people dead and at least 25 others injured.

In June 2021, a man with the name of Anderson Lee Aldrich of the same age was arrested for making a bomb threat to a suburban neighborhood in southeast Colorado Springs,  according to The Gazette,  a local newspaper.

Aldrich’s mother told police her son threatened her with a homemade bomb and other weapons, according to The Gazette.

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office evacuated the neighborhood and shut the area down until Aldrich came out of a house he was in.

Aldrich was charged with two counts of felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping, but the charges were later dropped and the records were sealed, the Hill reports.

Police recovered a long gun and a handgun from Club Q, a popular gay and lesbian bar in Colorado Springs. The New York Times reported that the suspect fired an AR-15 style rifle and was wearing body armor.

He was reportedly stopped when a man attending a drag show at the club with his wife and daughter wrestled him to the floor and hit the suspected killer with a handgun after snatching it from his hand.

Richard M. Fierro, who served in the Army for 15 years, said he raced across the room, grabbed the suspected gunman by a handle on the back of his body armor, pulled him to the floor and jumped on top of him, knocking the rifle out of his reach, the New York Times reports.

Fierro then grabbed the suspect’s pistol and hit him with it repeatedly.