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Police: Gunman kills 5 at gay Club, is subdued by patrons
By THOMAS PEIPERT and JESSE BEDAYN
an hour ago
Tyrice Kelley, center right, a performer at Club Q, is comforted during a service held at All Souls Unitarian Church following an overnight fatal shooting at the gay nightclub, in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022. (Parker Seibold/The Gazette via AP)
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A 22-year-old gunman opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle inside a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing five people and leaving 25 injured before he was subdued by “heroic” patrons and arrested by police who arrived within minutes, authorities said Sunday.
The suspect in the Saturday night shooting at Club Q used an AR-15-style semiautomatic weapon, a law enforcement official said. A handgun and additional ammunition magazines also were recovered, according to the official, who could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The attack ended when a patron grabbed a handgun from the suspect and hit him with it, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers told The Associated Press. The person who hit the gunman had him pinned down when police arrived, Suthers said.
“Had that individual not intervened this could have been exponentially more tragic,” Suthers said.
On its facebook page, the club known as it a “hate assault.” Investigators were still figuring out a cause and whether or not to prosecute it as a hate crime, said El Paso County District lawyer Michael Allen. Charges against the suspect will probable consist of first-degree murder, he stated.
Police recognized the alleged gunman as Anderson Lee Aldrich, who changed into in custody and being treated for injuries.
Aldrich became arrested in 2021 after his mom pronounced he threatened her with a home made bomb and different guns, authorities stated. They declined to problematic on that arrest. No explosives were discovered, authorities stated on the time, and The Gazette in Colorado Springs pronounced that prosecutors did now not pursue any charges and that statistics were sealed.
Of the 25 injured, at least seven had been in essential situation, government said. A few have been harm trying to flee, and it become uncertain if all the victims had been shot, a police spokesperson said.
Suthers stated there has been “motive to wish” that all of these hospitalized would recover.
The shooting rekindled reminiscences of the 2016 bloodbath on the Pulse homosexual nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 humans. Colorado has experienced several mass killings, which include at Columbine high school in 1999, a film theater in suburban Denver in 2012 and at a Boulder grocery store final yr.
It changed into the sixth mass killing this month and came in a yr whilst the nation become shaken through the deaths of 21 in a faculty taking pictures in Uvalde, Texas.
Authorities have been known as to club Q at eleven:fifty seven p.M. Saturday with a record of a capturing, and the first officer arrived in the dead of night.
