Update, 12:53 p.m. November 21: The Colorado Springs Police Department has updated information related to the November 19 attack on Club Q. The CSPD originally stated that five people were killed and 25 were injured. But the department now lists the victims as "five deceased community members," "seventeen community members who are injured because of a gunshot wound," "one community member who was injured, but not because of a gunshot wound" and "one community member who was a victim with no visible injuries."
The CSPD adds: "We know many more community members were present at Club Q during the shooting who may be victims with no visible injuries. An example is a community member who ran out as the shooting occurred. We are asking anyone in the community who might have been a victim or has information about a potential victim, or might have seen something, has information about this incident, to contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI (or 1-800-225-5324)."
The five people killed during the shooting have now been identified as Ashley Paugh, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Daniel Davis Aston and Derrick Rump.
Continue for our original post:
The attack on Club Q, which killed five people at a Colorado Springs nightspot beloved by the local LBGTQ+ community, continues to dominate the news cycle both locally and nationally. And while a great deal of information about the shooting has yet to be released, more information is surfacing about Anderson Lee Aldrich, the 22-year-old gunman.
The suspect was arrested last year on multiple charges, including felony menacing and kidnapping, in connection with a bomb threat against his mother. And he's reportedly the grandson of a California politician who likened the January 6 insurrection to the American Revolution.
The Colorado Springs Police Department's first tweet about the shooting at the club at 3430 North Academy bears a time stamp of 1:03 a.m. on Sunday, November 20: "PIO Lt Castro responding to shooting on N Academy. ETA 45 minutes." Only later did the CSPD provide details about its response; according to the department, officers rushed to the venue at 11:57 p.m. Saturday, November 19, and arrived at 12:02 a.m., when they immediately took the gunman into custody. He was being held by individuals at the club who'd tackled him after he opened fire with a "long rifle," according to the CSPD. The New York Times has described the firearm as an assault weapon in the style of an AR-15.
The venue shared a post on its Facebook page in the hours after the assault: "Club Q is devastated by the senseless attack on our community. ... We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack," which brought back unfortunate memories of the 2016 killings at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
An official list of victims who were killed or injured has not yet been released, but family and friends have shared the names of two club staffers who died: Daniel Davis Aston and Derrick Rump.
In a statement, Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said, "I want to express my deepest condolences to those families who have lost a loved one and those who were injured in this terribly sad and tragic shooting. I want every citizen in our city to know the men and women of the Colorado Springs Police Department stand with you during this tragedy. We are working tirelessly to ensure justice for the victims in this senseless and evil shooting. Club Q is a safe haven for our LGBTQ+ citizens. Every citizen has the right to be safe and secure in our city; to go about our beautiful city without fear of being harmed or treated poorly. I am so terribly saddened and heartbroken."
Here's a video of a CSPD press conference about the shootings from KRDO-TV via the Washington Post:
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office had experience with the gunman. An EPCSO news release noted that at around 1:56 p.m. on June 18, 2021, deputies responded to a report of a bomb threat at the home he shared with his mother on the 9800 block of Rubicon Drive. The mother said her son was "threatening to cause harm to her with a homemade bomb, multiple weapons, and ammunition. The reporting party was not in the home at the time when she made the call and was not sure where her son was."
Deputies soon traced her son to the 6300 block of Pilgrimage Road, about a mile from his house, but when they reached him by phone, "he refused to comply with orders to surrender," according to the sheriff's office. At that point, the CSPD's tactical-support unit, including a crew with expertise in explosives, was dispatched, and several hours later, at approximately 4:15 p.m., about ten nearby homes were evacuated, with a text notification to other residences following shortly thereafter.
At 5:46 p.m., negotiators convinced the son to surrender, and while no explosives were found at the residence, he was booked into El Paso County jail on two counts of felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping.
In the wake of the shooting, the gunman's mother has been identified as Laura Voepel, daughter of Randy Voepel, a 71-year-old member of the California state assembly — though perhaps for not much longer, since he currently trails in a race necessitated by redistricting. Randy Voepel has been in office since 2016, and following the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, he told the San Diego Union-Tribune, "This is Lexington and Concord. First shots fired against tyranny. Tyranny will follow in the aftermath of the Biden swear-in on January 20th."
Thus far, Randy Voepel hasn't commented on the shooting. The last message on his Twitter account was posted in September.
The Denver-Boulder area has had more than its share of mass casualty events in recent decades, including the 1999 attack on Columbine High School, the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, and the 2021 slayings at a Boulder King Soopers. But Colorado Springs hasn't been immune from this phenomenon.
An attack on a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood center that killed three people and injured nine others made countless national headlines in November 2015, and plenty of other crimes that fit the Gun Violence Archive definition of a mass shooting — an incident in which at least four people are killed or injured — have taken place in the city since then.
Between the March 21, 2021, assault on the Boulder King Soopers and the May 14 killings at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York, Colorado experienced sixteen mass shootings by the GVA standard — and five of them were in Colorado Springs. Here's the list, in reverse chronological order:
April 2, 2022
Colorado Springs
2500 block of Astrozon Circle and 2400 block of Barkman Drive
Four injured
Estevan Pacheco was taken into custody after allegedly shooting four people before being struck by a truck at whose occupants he'd opened fire. Among the victims was a twelve-year-old boy shot nine times.
March 25, 2022
Colorado Springs
820 Citadel Drive East
Two killed, two injured
Jeremiah Brown, 20, and Matthew Westrich, 21, lost their lives after a shooting that was reportedly motivated by a fight outside the popular Citadel mall. Another man and a woman survived their wounds.
March 9, 2022
Aurora
3300 North Ouray Street
One killed, four injured
An evening shooting at a Quality Inn killed a juvenile and hurt four others, including two women, ages nineteen and twenty.
January 9, 2022
Colorado Springs
1960 Chelton Road
Two killed, three injured
Two teenagers died and a third was injured, along with a pair of adults, in an early-morning shooting. Kadin Dyer Blaschke, nineteen, was arrested for the crime a few days later at a motel in Reno, Nevada.
January 1, 2022
Denver
1919 Blake Street
Two killed, two injured
Levi Floyd Diecidue, 22, was arrested in Aurora in connection with a New Year's shooting at Cabin Tap House that killed Hiyaw Zewdie, 29, and Devonte Phillips, 24, and put two men in the hospital.
December 27, 2021
Denver
56 Broadway
Six killed, two injured
The shooting rampage committed by Lyndon McLeod, 47, that began in Denver and ended in Lakewood killed Alicia Cardenas, Alyssa Gunn-Maldonado and Michael Swinyard, Danny Scofield and Sarah Steck. McLeod was eventually slain by Lakewood Police Agent Ashley Ferris after he'd shot her in the abdomen.
November 28, 2021
Aurora
1500 block of Dayton Street
Five injured
A shooting in the area of Dayton Street and East Colfax Avenue shortly after midnight on November 28 injured five people who were believed to have been attending a nearby party.
November 15, 2021
Aurora
1200 Nome Street
Six injured
Daniel Ruelas, sixteen, and three fifteen-year-old suspects were taken into custody regarding a shooting at Nome Park that wounded six.
October 31, 2022
Lakewood
6200 block of Alameda Avenue
Two killed, two injured
A 12:30 a.m. shooting near the intersection of Alameda and Harlan Street resulted in one death at the scene and another when the victim failed to respond to medical treatment. Another pair of individuals self-transported to a hospital.
October 30, 2021
Colorado Springs
1350 Pleier Drive
Four killed
Two adults and two juveniles died at a house in the Colorado Springs-area community of Gleneagle in what investigators characterized as a murder-suicide.
October 17, 2021
Colorado Springs
1865 North Academy Boulevard
Five injured
An exchange of gunfire outside a bar called the Latin Quarters resulted in five people hurt.
October 9, 2021
Denver
7300 block of East 22nd Avenue
One killed, three injured
Timothy Massangale, 62, was killed and another man and two women were hospitalized with serious injuries after the shooting.
October 2, 2021
Aurora
12230 East Colfax Avenue
One killed, three injured
A shooting in a room at Aurora's Hyatt House Hotel killed Angel Isia Ruiz, eighteen, and injured three others — a seventeen-year-old woman and two men in their early twenties.
August 22, 2021
Denver
19th Street and Blake Street
One killed, five injured
A shooting near the Beta nightclub at around 2:15 a.m. left 23-year-old Jean Marquris Stewart dead and injured five others.
June 20, 2021
Aurora
12455 East Mississippi Avenue
One dead, four injured
A Juneteenth celebration turned into a horror show when gunfire erupted in the parking lot of a strip mall.
May 9, 2021
Colorado Springs
2828 Preakness Way
Seven killed
A late-night birthday party at the Canterbury Mobile Home Park went terribly wrong. Six people were killed before the gunman fatally shot himself.