USA: Shock, anger and horror after shooting at LGBTQIA+ nightclub

Residents of Colorado Springs, in the western United States, mourned, amid shock and horror, the death of five people killed in a shooting at an LGBQIA+ nightclub this Monday (21) commemorating Transgender Memorial Day weekend.

There were flowers, candles and signs with messages like “Love Not Hate” near Club Q, where 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich opened fire with an assault rifle into the crowd just before midnight on Saturday. people called “heroes” by the police.

About the incident in this Colorado town near the Rocky Mountains, authorities said twenty-five people were injured Monday, some of whom are still in critical condition.

When the assailant broke into the scene, a transvestite demonstration was just held to mark the internationally celebrated Transgender Remembrance Day, 20 November, dedicated to victims of transphobic violence.

“I looked up and saw the shadow of a tall person holding a gun. I could see the gun just fine,” bartender Michael Anderson told AFP.

“Explosion after explosion. It was absolutely terrifying,” he recalled. “I went behind the bar. Glass was flying around me as if bullets were breaking the bottles and everything in them.”

– Heroes –

According to the information given by the police, the massacre, which lasted for a few minutes, ended with the heroic intervention of two people who confronted the suspect.

Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers told The New York Times that one person shot the attacker before he grabbed his rifle and threw it to the ground. The identities of these two people are still unknown as of Monday.

“It all happened so fast. The person was completely subdued two minutes after midnight,” the mayor said, adding that although the police have not yet officially revealed the reason for the attack, everything points to a “hate crime”.

Anderson Lee Aldrich was arrested and hospitalized.

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said last year a 21-year-old man of the same name threatened his mother with a pipe bomb and multiple guns in a town 30 minutes’ drive from Colorado Springs.

President Joe Biden said on Sunday that “We must not tolerate hatred”, while Colorado Governor Jared Polis, the first openly gay governor elected in the United States, declared he was “appalled and devastated”.

Joshua Thurman, who was on the dance floor when he heard the gunshots and managed to hide in the locker room, said, “This was going to be our shelter… where do we go?” said.

– Do not misunderstand –

Aeron Laney, 24, who was at Club Q for the first time that night, described it as a small club where “everyone is having fun, smiling and laughing”.

“I can’t understand how someone could come and see such happy and relaxed people in their community and want to end it,” she tearfully told AFP.

“We will continue to fight for a world where LGBTQIA+ people can be fully celebrated throughout their lives and remembered not only for their deaths but also for their joy,” the powerful American civil rights association ACLU said.

This tragedy takes place in an environment of political tensions against transgender people, especially during the last midterm elections.

But this isn’t the first massacre of its kind in the United States.

According to the Archives of Gun Violence, 601 mass shootings have occurred in the United States since the beginning of 2022, and it defines a mass shooting as the killing or wounding of four people, not counting the shooter, by firearms.

But any attempt to make firearms legislation truly binding runs counter to the National Rifle Association (NRA) lobby, which has had significant influence in Washington.

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© Agence France-Presse