Records show judge Robin Chittum warned in 2021 of Anderson Aldrich's plans for mass attack
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO: A judge dropped a 2021 abduction case against the shooter at Club Q despite voicing concerns about the suspect's aggressive tendencies and preparations for a potential shootout, according to transcripts. The facts reaffirm earlier concerns regarding law enforcement's familiarity with Anderson Lee Aldrich's background and if more assertive action may have averted the Club Q shooting, which resulted in the deaths of five individuals and the injuries of over a dozen more.
Relatives, including the grandparents who claimed to have been kidnapped, told Judge Robin Chittum in August last year about Aldrich's difficulties with mental illness at a hearing in which the judge warned Aldrich required therapy or "it's going to be so bad," according to the court transcripts obtained Friday, December 16 by The Associated Press reveal. However, neither the suspect's aggressive tendencies nor the status of any mental health treatment was mentioned during a hearing in July this year.
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Aldrich was warned by Judge Robin Chittum, "You clearly have been planning for something else," during a hearing in August 2021. "It didn’t have to do with your grandma and grandpa," Chittum noted. "It was saving all these firearms and trying to make this bomb, and making statements about other people being involved in some sort of shootout and a huge thing. And then that’s kind of what it turned into," per news from AXIOS.
And Chittum, who had received a letter late last year from Aldrich's grandparents' relatives indicating the defendant was likely to commit murder if released, allowed a defense lawyer's plea to dismiss the case as a trial date loomed and the grandparents had ceased cooperating. The revelation that Chittum thought the defendant posed a potentially serious threat adds to the forewarnings authorities are known to have received about Aldrich's increasingly violent behavior and makes it less clear whether the recent shooting spree at Club Q in Colorado Springs could have been stopped.
The records reveal that Aldrich, who was primarily nurtured by their grandparents, wanted to enlist in the military as a teenager but changed their mind. The transcripts state that the suspect admitted to refusing to take medication until "getting on track" after moving to Colorado, earning a medicinal marijuana license, and beginning college. “I also went to the (shooting range) as often as I could since the age of 16,” Aldrich testified, the transcripts show. “My mom and I would go ... sometimes multiple times a week and have fun shooting. This is a major pastime for me. Going to school, working and then relaxing at the shooting range." Shooting at the range “was highly therapeutic for me, and was a great way to spend spare time,” Aldrich told Chittum.
In the attack on November 19, five people died and seventeen were wounded. 305 criminal counts, including first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, assault, and crimes motivated by bigotry, were brought against Aldrich last week. Murder and hate crimes were also included.