'He hated gays': Club Q shooter Anderson Aldrich made vile anti-LGBTQ slurs, says neighbor
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO: A former neighbor of the Colorado Club Q gunman Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, said the attacker did not like the LGBTQ community and made several hateful comments toward them. The 22-year-old who is facing murder and hate crime charges allegedly went on a killing spree on Saturday, November 19, and killed five people and left at least 25 wounded in the LGBTQ+ club.
"Just expressed he didn’t like the LGBTQ community," said Xavier Kraus who spent hours talking to the FBI on Tuesday morning. "And pretty sure at one point he expressed he hated the LGBTQ community, he hated gays." Kraus who lived across the hallway from Aldrich said, "This is not the type of person I would take around my gay friends." “He used the term ‘f—-t’ a lot. Most of the time it came from a place of anger,” Kraus added.
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According to Kraus, Aldrich and their mom moved into the apartment building in August 2021 and the men became close friends and bonded over tech and video games. Kraus also informed the authorities Aldrich and his mom moved to their residence shortly after deputies in El Paso County had arrested Aldrich on multiple felonies. Aldrich who is addressed as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, according to 9News, apparently threatened to hurt their mother with a homemade bomb and weapons.
Law enforcement responded to a home on Rubicon Drive but when they arrived at the location, deputies realized the suspect was at a house on Pilgrimage Road. The doorbell footage of the house shows Aldrich and their mom walking towards the door of Leslie Bowman’s home on Pilgrimage Road, where the mom was renting a room. It was later revealed the suspect lived with his grandparents at the home on Rubicon Drive where the deputies first responded and later flee to their mother's rented apartment on Pilgrimage Road to hide.
"My understanding is he got into some sort of argument with his grandparents that he lived with and at some point threatened them with a weapon," Bowman, the homeowner said. While Aldrich was in a standoff with police, Bowman, who was not at home at the time, was receiving updates from the suspect's mom. Hours later, deputies arrested the suspect on multiple felonies, including felony menacing and first-degree kidnapping, reported the source. Bowman who provided the doorbell footage to authorities said the charges were dropped against Aldrich.
New footage obtained by The Gazette shows the events leading to the arrest of 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, whose name and age match that of the suspect arrested in Saturday's Club Q shooting, in connection a June 2021 bomb threat reported by his mother. pic.twitter.com/k50TjKKKok
— The Gazette (@csgazette) November 21, 2022
"My biggest confusion came from when I found out the charges had been dropped," Bowman said. "Was it because they felt they didn’t have enough information? Or was it because the witnesses weren’t cooperating?" After Aldrich's release, they apparently discussed the arrest with Kraus. "I can't remember the full details of the story, but the bottom line is they didn't want to testify against Andy," Kraus said. He added after the case dropped on him Aldrich allegedly showed him multiple guns, "according to him, these were all legal weapons. He was able to have them," he said. "If I knew what he was going to do what he did, I would have done something. I would have said something. I just didn’t know."