Five people were killed, and 25 others were injured, 19 of them by gunfire. The accused, year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, was also injured and taken to a local hospital. Club Q is located at the block of North Academy Boulevard and opened in Since , Colorado has had a red flag law that allows citizens or law enforcement to petition a court to order the removal of firearms from a potentially dangerous person. Of the 19 states and the District of Columbia with red flag laws, Colorado has among the lowest per capita rates of invocation of the law.
In opposition to the Colorado statute, more than half of the state's 64 counties declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries , including El Paso County where the shooting occurred. According to the police chief, the shooting began when the shooter entered Club Q while a dance party was being held. Wielding an AR style rifle , carrying multiple magazines of ammunition , and wearing body armor , [2] [3] [4] [19] the shooter immediately began firing at employees and patrons while moving further into the building.
Many survivors at first mistook the gunfire for being a part of the music, until the shots continued and occupants saw the muzzle flashes. Minutes into the shooting, a club patron, identified as U. Army veteran Richard M. Fierro, charged across the room and tackled the shooter to the ground, causing the rifle to fall out of reach.
Fierro then grabbed a handgun from the shooter's hand and used it to hit the shooter repeatedly in the head. Fierro was assisted by two other patrons he recruited, including Thomas James, who moved the rifle away to safety, [22] and a trans woman who used her high heels to stomp on the shooter, and who helped disable and hold the shooter down until the authorities arrived.
Police received an initial call for service regarding the shooting at p. The first responding officer arrived in the area at midnight and arrested a suspect two minutes later. A total of thirty-nine patrol officers from all four divisions of the Colorado Springs Police Department , along with thirty-four firefighters and eleven ambulances, responded to the scene.
