Tyler Johnston, right, comforts his friend Joshua Thurman at a makeshift memorial near Club Q, Sunday, Nov. 20. Thurman was inside the nightclub when a gunman walked in and opened fire the night before. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via AP)
On Saturday, Nov. 19, shortly before midnight, a gunman, armed with a semi-automatic long gun and a handgun, walked into the LGBTQ bar Club Q in Colorado Springs and opened fire. He killed five people and caused at least 25 others to be wounded.
The list of casualties would be much longer if not for the quick thinking and bravery of Army veteran Richard Fierro, who tackled the gunman, disarmed him and used the shooter’s handgun to disable him. Patron Thomas James came to Fierro’s assistance, getting the long gun out of the shooter’s reach. And an as-yet unnamed transgender woman stepped in to kick and stomp the shooter, using her high heels as her weapon, to help Fierro subdue him.
Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, has been charged with five counts of murder and multiple charges of hate-motivated assault in the terrorist attack.
Dallas Voice stands with Club Q and with our LGBTQ community and allies around the world in condemning the violence that took the lives of those five victims at Club Q and left the others there that night with injuries, whether physical, mental or emotional. And we condemn the hate speech, especially from elected officials and other religious and civic leaders, that breeds the hatred, bigotry and violence that led to this attack as well as the ongoing pandemic of violence against our community, especially our transgender brothers and sisters.
Stand with us. End the Hate. Let’s make sure Love Wins.
Ashley Paugh
Daniel Aston
Derrick Rump
Kelly Loving
Raymond Green Vance
Funny how this article omits the fact that the shooter identifies as “non-binary”.
Of course, as many have pointed out, that could just be a ruse to avoid charges of a hate-crime on top of murder.
However, that in itself is rather amusing, since we now have literally hundreds of liberals on Twitter admitting that a person who claims to be “non-binary” might be making it up. But aren’t we supposed to affirm everyone’s identity?
Why would we affirm a murderer in anyway. The gender is irrelevant. A hateful murderer that committed an act of hate and terrorism on the Colorado Springs LGBTQ + deserves to be identified as such. Again. Gender not relevant. State of mental health, that adult petson’s responsibility. Automatic weapons in the hands of a domestic terrorist/murderer is on our politicians that continue to make it easy for weapons of war to be available to anyone. Is that ‘funny’ as well?!!?
J. Ashley Ward, Colorado Springs, CO
Michael: This is not an article. This is a tribute to the victims and the heroes of the Club Q mass shooting. If you read the articles we have posted on our blog regarding the shooting — this one for instance: https://dallasvoice.com/lawyers-say-aldrich-is-nonbinary-as-details-emerge-of-shooters-troubled-life/ — you will see that we do, indeed, report that the suspect’s attorneys said in court documents that the suspect identifies as nonbinary.
To each person voicing support for the victims of the Club Q massacre today, unless you voted a few weeks ago, and voted for candidates who promote curbing the availability of weapons of mass murder, your support is hollow (the equivalent of Republicans’ “thoughts and prayers” as a response to each and every tragedy in recent years). Until those pablum-spewing politicians are replaced by people who are not beholden to the guns and murder industry, nothing will change, except for the location of the next tragedy. If you did not vote, and if you do not vote in the future, you cannot be part of the solution, since you have chosen to be part of the problem. If you have not learned in recent years that votes have consequences, you have not learned anything.