US

Alleged Gunman Faces Murder, Hate Crimes Charges for Shooting at Colorado LGBTQ Bar That Killed 5

The sun shines on a sign placed at a memorial outside of Club Q on Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, in Colorado Springs, Colo. The man suspected of opening fire at the gay nightclub in Colorado Springs is being held on murder and hate crime charges. The charges surfaced in online court records Monday, two days after the attack that killed at least five people and wounded many others.Recent months have seen a sharp spike in attacks on LGBTQ institutions and venues by right-wing groups in the US, alongside increasing attempts to associate LGBTQ people with “groomers,” a term that refers to how pedophiles lure children into trusting them so they can take sexual advantage of the child.According to local media reports on Monday, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich is set to face five murder charges and five additional hate crime charges in connection with a mass shooting at an LGBTQ venue on Saturday night.The shooting happened at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Aldrich allegedly opened fire with a long rifle and a handgun. Five people were killed and another 25 wounded in the attack, which ended when bar customers rushed Aldrich, tackled him to the ground, and seized his weapon, according to local reports.

“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” one bar patron, a US Army veteran, told the New York Times about his response during the attack. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”

Investigators have not yet released information about an alleged motive for the attack. It is just one of several in recent days across the US.In New York, police are looking for a man who they say has thrown a brick at an LGBTQ bar’s windows four times in the last week, releasing security camera footage of his face. On Saturday, hours before the shooting in Colorado, there was a confrontation outside a bookstore in Denton, Texas, between right-wing anti-LGBTQ demonstrators and armed left-wing activists. The store was hosting a book reading event for children featuring books designed to present LGBTQ topics like gender identity for young minds.Right-wing activists and politicians have tried to claim in recent months that LGBTQ topics are only suitable for adult consumption, and that presenting them to children is sexualization and “grooming,” or pedophilia. Figures on social media have spread news about events, such as drag queen story hour, and the locations of medical clinics that cater to the needs of transgender youth, which pro-LGBTQ activists have blamed for a sharp rise in attacks on those establishments.In one incident during LGBTQ Pride Month in June, over three dozen members of the self-described fascist militia group Patriot Front were arrested in the back of a moving truck on their way to disrupt a Pride event in an Idaho city park.More than 200 bills seeking to restrict the rights of LGBTQ people have been introduced into state and federal legislatures over the last year.Hours after the Colorado Springs shooting, LGBTQ communities commemorated the Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual event that honors the memory of all trans people killed in the previous year. Worldwide, activists compiled a list of 366 people, and in the US, 57 – two of whom were killed in the Colorado Springs shooting.

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