Colorado gay club shooter planned to become 'the next mass killer' trends now

Colorado gay club shooter planned to become 'the next mass killer' trends now
Colorado gay club shooter planned to become 'the next mass killer' trends now

Colorado gay club shooter planned to become 'the next mass killer' trends now

More than a year before Anderson Lee Aldrich allegedly carried out the deadly Colorado gay nightclub shooting, the suspect had threatened to kill their grandparents for standing in the way of an elaborate plan to become 'the next mass killer.'  

'You guys die today and I'm taking you with me,' they are quoted as saying. 'I'm loaded and ready.'

In June 2021, Aldrich flew into a rage when the grandparents announced they were selling their home and moving to Florida, according to sealed law enforcement documents viewed by The Associated Press.

The move would interfere with Aldrich's plans to stockpile materials Aldrich' claimed was 'enough firepower to blow up an entire police department and a federal building' in the grandparent's basement to 'conduct a mass shooting and bombing.' 

Aldrich threatened to kill them if they didn't promise to cancel the move and so began a day of terror Aldrich unleashed that culminated in the standoff.

But charges against Aldrich were dropped and there was no effort to seize their weapons under Colorado's 'red flag' law. Just a year and a half later, Aldrich was free to carry out the plan to become 'the next mass killer.'

Before Anderson Lee Aldrich allegedly carried out the deadly Colorado gay nightclub shooting, the suspect had threatened to kill their grandparents in 2021 for standing in the way of an elaborate plan to become 'the next mass killer'

Before Anderson Lee Aldrich allegedly carried out the deadly Colorado gay nightclub shooting, the suspect had threatened to kill their grandparents in 2021 for standing in the way of an elaborate plan to become 'the next mass killer'

In December 2022, Aldrich, 22, was charged in the Colorado shootings that left five dead

In December 2022, Aldrich, 22, was charged in the Colorado shootings that left five dead

The incident in 2021 brought SWAT teams and the bomb squad to the normally quiet neighborhood, forced the grandparents - Pamela and Jonathon Pullen - to flee for their lives and prompted the evacuation of 10 nearby homes to escape a possible bomb blast. 

The Denver Gazette reported that Aldrich lived with Pamela and Jonathon Pullen and threatened them when they announced they were moving to Florida in June 2021. The pair moved from Colorado to Florida in November 2021.

The standoff was livestreamed on Facebook, showing Aldrich in tactical gear inside the mother's home and threatening officers outside - 'If they breach, I'm a f----ing blow it to holy hell!' - before finally surrendering.' 

And then just before midnight on November 19, 2022, Aldrich, clad in body armor and carrying an AR-15-style rifle, entered the Club Q gay nightclub and opened fire, authorities say, killing five people and wounding 17 others before an Army veteran wrestled the attacker to the ground.

'It makes no sense,' said Jerecho Loveall, a former Club Q dancer who is recovering from a wound to the leg from one of the high-powered rounds. 

'If they would have taken this more seriously and done their job, the lives we lost, the injuries we sustained and the trauma this community has faced would not have happened.'

'It was absolutely preventable,' said Wyatt Kent, who held the hand of a woman as she bled to death on top of him, and who also lost his partner that night. 'Even if charges aren't filed for a bomb threat, maybe you're not mentally sound enough to own a firearm.'

Why nothing was done to stop Aldrich since coming onto law enforcement's radar last year is a question that has haunted this picturesque Rockies city of 480,000 since the shooting, even as loved ones have begun burying the victims and the shuttered Club Q has become a shrine surrounded by hundreds of bouquets, wreaths and rainbow flags.

Criminal defense lawyers with whom AP shared the law enforcement documents say they questioned why charges were not pursued in the 2021 incident given the grandparents' detailed statements and a tense standoff at the mother's home.

Anderson Lee Aldrich is shown, left, in a family photo and right, in a June 2021 livestream where he threatened to blow up a house where his mother was renting a room. He is now charged with five counts of murder

Anderson Lee Aldrich is shown, left, in a family photo and right, in a June 2021 livestream where he threatened to blow up a house where his mother was renting a room. He is now charged with five counts of murder

Anderson Lee Aldrich is shown, left, in a family photo and right, in a June 2021 livestream where he threatened to blow up a house where his mother was renting a room. He is now charged with five counts of murder in the Colorado gay nightclub shootings

Aldrich's mother, Laura Voepel

Aldrich's mother, Laura Voepel

The documents were obtained by Colorado Springs TV station KKTV and verified as authentic to AP by a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the sealed case and kept anonymous. 

Documents also included a judge's order to jail Aldrich on $1 million bond and a listing by El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen of seven offenses 'committed, or triable,' including three felony counts of kidnapping and two of menacing.

For his part, Allen has repeatedly declined to comment on why those charges didn't go forward, citing a Colorado law that automatically seals records in cases when charges are dropped and bars him from acknowledging they even exist.

The law was passed three years ago as part of a nationwide movement to help prevent people from having their lives ruined if cases are dismissed and never prosecuted.

And even though Allen said during a news conference soon after the nightclub shooting that he 'hoped at some point in the near future' to share more about the 2021 incident, he has yet to do so. AP and other news organizations have gone to court seeking to unseal the entire case file, a request scheduled to be heard later this week.

In the absence of that file, there are only scattered clues about what happened after Aldrich's 2021 arrest, including Aldrich telling The Gazette of Colorado Springs in August about spending two months in jail as a result of the incident and asking the publication to remove or update its web coverage about it, asserting the case had been dismissed. 

'There is absolutely nothing there, the case was dropped,' Aldrich said in a phone message, adding, 'It is damaging to my reputation.'

When a Gazette reporter followed up with a call and asked why the case was dropped, Aldrich declined to say anything more because the case had been sealed.

Such a troubling case - dropped or not - could still have been used to trigger Colorado's 'red flag' law, which allows family members or law enforcement to ask a judge to order a removal of guns for a year from people dangerous to themselves or others, with possible extensions based on subsequent hearings.

But an AP review of court records shows neither Aldrich's grandparents nor mother went to a judge to get such an order. And the agency that arrested Aldrich, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, didn't either.

Aldrich is the grandson of Randy Voepel, who is believed to be a MAGA Republican lawmaker who praised the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol last year. His other grandparents: Pamela and Jonathon Pullen - whom he lived with and threatened when they said they were moving

Aldrich is the grandson of Randy Voepel, who is believed to be a MAGA Republican lawmaker who praised the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol last year. His other grandparents: Pamela and Jonathon Pullen - whom he lived with and threatened when they said they were moving

Former California State Assemblyman Randy Voepel (c) as pictured on his Facebook page

Former California State Assemblyman Randy Voepel (c) as pictured on his Facebook page

El Paso County is especially hostile to the

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