Club Q Shooting Survivors Give Each Other Strength on One-Year Anniversary

On November 19, 2022, a shooter killed five people and injured seventeen others at the Club Q nightclub in Colorado Springs. A year later, survivors are still putting the pieces back together — planning to meet what they say will be a hard anniversary with strength and their "Q" family.

“For me, the anniversary is the day that I lost my safe space and the day that I lost my friends,” says Hysteria Brooks, who performed at Club Q and helped triage victims in the parking lot the night of the attack. “I don't feel like I'll have my safe space back. I know I won't have my friends back. But I know that I do have the family that I will surround myself with on that day.”

Brooks says the “Q” family has grown even stronger over the last year, coming together to help each other through what has been a life-changing trauma. John Arcediano, an employee who was in the club during the shooting massacre  — and who has since helped lead the effort to get justice for survivors — says the club has seen an uptick in mental health needs as the anniversary approaches.

“I myself have felt very overwhelmed and very emotional in many situations,” Arcediano says. “I find myself getting more emotional and a little bit more on edge in certain situations than I normally would. … I personally have experienced flashbacks from that evening more frequently since we have gotten closer.”

He’s giving himself grace as he continues healing. On November 19, Arcediano plans to participate in both private and public events supporting the community.

Club Q ownership is holding a remembrance outside the club at 3430 North Academy Boulevard at noon, with Governor Jared Polis and Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade attending, as well as Aston’s parents.

Bread and Roses Legal Center — a social justice organization in Denver that has been helping victims of the tragedy advocate for themselves — and Springs community-building nonprofit Community Health Partnership (CHP) are co-hosting a Club Q cleanup at 2 p.m. outside the venue. They will tidy up the informal memorials for the five people who were killed: Daniel Aston, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, Derrick Rump and Raymond Green Vance.

On November 20, the groups will also host an event in Acacia Park at 115 East Platte Aveue in the Springs for Transgender Day of Remembrance, which began in 1999 to honor lives lost because of transphobia. Colorado State Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson will be among the speakers at the event, which is dedicated to Aston and Loving.

“This weekend for me is really about —I don't want to say closure, because it's never-ending — I want to say that this weekend is really about being with other survivors and going through the motions together to pay that tribute, to grieve and to experience that feeling in community,” Arcediano says. “Knowing that this was an event that impacted everybody, and together we will get through this dark path and we will come out on the other side.”

For Arcediano, the last year has been transformative; he left his full-time job at the Melting Pot to become CHP’s program and outreach manager for Prism Community Collective, which plans to open a new LGBTQ+ resource center in Colorado Springs soon. He says he wanted to devote himself more to community work after the shooting.

“When you go through something of that magnitude, there are a lot of things that really make you question what it is to be alive and what it is to walk through this world,” Arcediano says. “It really changes your perception of everything. It’s been really hard trying to identify what I'm capable of and what I'm not capable of, and what things I was good at in my past life and what things I'm good at in my new life.”

Brooks, too, says she’s a different person than she was last November, especially after participating in the push to get money designated for survivors from the Colorado Healing Fund (CHF) and from the GoFundMe set up by one of Club Q’s owners into the hands of those who were impacted.

“I feel like I've had to do a lot more fighting than I got to do grieving this past year,” she says. "And that sucks. It's hard when the people and the institutions that are in place to assist you through something like this fail, and you're left trying to pick up the pieces for yourself and trying to help as many people as you can.”

The Colorado Healing Fund is a nonprofit dedicated to being a trusted source for donors in the wake of mass tragedies. It has faced criticism for the restrictiveness and documentation it requires for funding and the fact that it keeps back some funds collected for the long-term needs of survivors.

Matthew Haynes, one of the owners of Club Q, set up a GoFundMe with this description: “This fund is managed by Club Q directly and will be used to ensure the Club Q staff and entertainers don’t suffer financial hardship due to this horrific act. This fund will also go towards the total remodel of Club Q, the construction of an appropriate memorial for our victims and a small museum onsite.”

Nearly three months after the shooting, staff hadn’t received a dime.

Many, including Brooks, took issue with ownership’s actions. “I feel like it's not very hard to do the right thing,” Brooks says. “One conversation should be enough for you to be able to say, ‘Okay, this is what survivors and victims are asking me, and this is what I should do.’” Just days before the anniversary, the CHF made a move to honor the many conversations that have taken place between the organization and survivors, giving out the remainder of the $3.25 million it had collected.

“The CHF had intended to hold back some funds to support the long-term needs of victims but conversations with victims made clear that the intermediate needs were too significant to not address immediately,” a press release from the organization explains. “As a result, the members of the board of directors made the decision to disburse the remaining $120,986.”

After months of pushing, Brooks says staff received some funds from Haynes. She didn’t even get enough to cover her rent, however, and says she still feels that ownership didn’t do what it should have, especially in light of the announcement that Club Q owners will open a new bar called The Q in the Satellite Hotel, at 411 Lakewood Circle.

“They are still very wrong for not assisting survivors of victims through this and that their main focus was reopening instead of making sure their staff and employees were taken care of,” Brooks says.

The Q will host drag shows, karaoke, arcade games and other entertainment, the group tells Westword in an email. The club also announced on October 24 that it will move forward with a permanent memorial at the original Club Q site.

Arcediano says advocacy groups are working to create a memorial that isn’t on the site of the shooting, as going there can be traumatizing. He speaks only for himself when he says that he does not support the reopening of a club. However, he knows that the LGBTQ+ community in Colorado Springs needs a safe space to replace what was taken away.

“I feel like as an organization that has been a pillar in the queer community, there could have been more done on their end to really step up and be in community and help community,” Arcediano says. “But that doesn't mean that this space doesn't belong. There are some people — regardless of many, many survivors very much against it reopening and community members as well — who will find healing and comfort in that opening.”

The Q will be operated by two shooting survivors, bartender Michael Anderson and DJ Tara Bush, aka “DJ T-BeatZ.” In the October 24 statement, the group said it is offering any former employees who wish to return the opportunity to join the team at The Q, but Brooks says she and others who spoke out against ownership in the aftermath haven’t been given that opportunity.

Still, Brooks says the LGBTQ+ community in Colorado Springs has grown stronger over the past year. Those impacted are all healing at their own pace, but they have each other for support.

“When you aren't ready, we'll be here for you,” Brooks tells other survivors. “When things are tough, when things are not so easy, we’ll be here. I know I’ve found myself hugging my friends a little bit tighter when I say goodbye, because you never know.”

Arcediano says it is true that those in the LBGTQ+ community choose their own family, and he’s grateful to all of those he counts as his — from fellow former Club Q employees to other survivors — for their love in the last year.

“I am so honored and blessed to have these people in my life and to be able to lean on them and to walk the path that we've walked in the hardest moment of all of our lives together,” Arcediano says. “Through all of this, I have found out that the Springs community is resilient, and we will come back stronger and better, and we will prove to the rest of the world that hate will not win.”