Colorado Springs shooting: suspect faces murder and hate crime charges

The details came as police updated the number of injured in the Saturday night rampage at Club Q to 18, and said the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, remained in custody at a local hospital.

Officials said it was likely he would be released from hospital in the next couple of days and would then make a first court appearance on video.

According to online court records obtained on Monday, Aldrich faces five murder charges and five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury.

The charges were preliminary, and prosecutors had not filed them in court, Michael Allen, district attorney of El Paso county told reporters at a press briefing on Monday afternoon.

The official could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The attack ended when the suspect was confronted by a club-goer described by witnesses as a hero.

Another patron helped to subdue the gunman, who was reported to be wearing full body armor, until police arrived, Haynes said. Officials identified the patrons who stopped the shooter as Richard Fierro and Thomas James and praised the pair as heroes.

Fierro, an army veteran, told the New York Times he was at the club with his wife and daughter when the gunfire broke out. He ran across the club, tackled the shooter and began beating him, he said.

With help from other patrons, including a drag performer who stomped on the shooter with her high heels, Fierro was able to put a stop to the attack. The 45-year-old said officers put him in handcuffs when they arrived and that he spent more than an hour in a police car.

Four of the five killed had been identified by family and friends by mid-afternoon Monday.

They included two bartenders at Club Q, Daniel Aston, 28; and Derrick Rump, 38; Kelly Loving, 40; and Ashley Paugh, 35. Paugh, who was visiting Colorado Springs with a friend, was mother to an 11-year-old daughter.

Officials named a fifth fatal victim, Raymond Green Vance, at the media briefing on Monday afternoon.

Of the injured, 17 were treated for gunshot wounds, and another received non-weapons related injuries, police said.

Lt Pamela Castro, spokesperson for the Colorado Springs police department, said the first 911 call was received at 11.56pm Saturday, and officers were on the scene within four minutes. The suspect was detained at two minutes past midnight, she said, and two weapons, including an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle, were recovered.

CNN cited two anonymous sources who said the attacker legally purchased the guns he used, but did not say when he had done so.

In June 2021, authorities said, he allegedly threatened his mother with a homemade bomb, forcing neighbors in surrounding homes to evacuate while the bomb squad and crisis negotiators talked him into surrendering.

CNN on Monday posted a report including video footage of the shooter surrendering to a Swat team after that incident.

Grzecka said the club had enacted an active shooter protocol following the 2016 gun attack on Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, in which a shooter took 49 lives.