Who is Laura Voepel? Club Q shooter Anderson Aldrich and mom caught making racist slurs in video
DENVER, COLORADO: The Colorado gunman's mother, Anderson Lee Aldrich, has had previous run-ins with the law, including three outstanding warrants in California, it has now been revealed. She was also videotaped abusing a passenger during a flight.
Aldrich carried out a mass shooting at a gay club called Club Q in Colorado on Saturday, November 19, on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance. Five people died in the attack, which is being investigated as a hate crime.
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Aldrich is in police custody at present. The 22-year-old was tackled by at least two heroic patrons during the attack. Besides the five people who died, another 25 were injured. Aldrich had previously been arrested in June 2021 for a bomb threat, but they were never formally charged.
Who is Laura Voepel?
After the shooting, cell phone video surfaced of a Frontier Airlines passenger showing Aldrich and Voepel in a heated confrontation with other passengers on July 31. The video was taken by Maria Martinez of Aurora, who said Aldrich called her a racial slur used against Hispanics. After calling her that name, Martinez began filming Aldrich and Voepel as they exited the plane.
"What makes me a b--?" Martinez is heard saying in the video, Fox 31 reports. "Shut up," Voepel says, to which Martinez repeats, "What makes me a b--?" Aldrich responds a few seconds later, "You keep following me, I'm going to f- you up."
Although Aldrich was wearing a face mask at the time, Martinez claimed that she and her daughter Kayla recognized them as the person now charged with the Colorado shooting. Tanya De La O, a friend of Martinez's who was traveling with them, said it was Voepel who began using racist language.
“I was having a hard time getting my luggage down (from the overhead bin), and all of a sudden, I just hear this woman say, ‘Hurry the f— up. You b—–.’ And then I turned around and said, excuse me?” De La O said, adding that Aldrich too was involved in the verbal abuse. She said she believes Aldrich must have learned the behavior from their mother.
“I can see where he gets it from. She’s the one that started with the racial slur … She was obnoxious. The whole flight. She literally made the crew remove a young lady with her baby that was sitting behind her because she (Voepel) was complaining about the baby. and the plane hadn’t even taken off yet,” De La O said.
Martinez said she did try to complain to the Frontier Airlines flight crew, but it seemed like they did not wish to get involved. Instead, they asked her to call customer service later. When she did, customer service told her she would have to put her complaint in writing.
Voepel, 45, was arrested in 2008 for false reporting, in 2010 for speeding and failing to appear in court, and in 2011 for driving under the influence in Golden State, the Gazette reports. Voepel was also arrested in Riverside in 2008 for public intoxication and failure to appear in court, but it is unclear if the arrest was related to the false report. The intoxication case was reportedly closed.
Voepel was sentenced to five years probation in one case in 2013, but it is unclear what the incident was. She reportedly failed to serve the term, which was set to expire in 2018, the New York Post reports. "At the end of the day, the district attorney made an offer of criminal mischief and probation," said her attorney, James Oltersdorf. Voepel's arson charge was also reduced to a lesser charge in San Antonio, Texas.
Aldrich's father Aaron Franklin Brink, who is reportedly an ex-con former MMA fighter turned porn star, also has a criminal history that includes assault convictions against Voepel. After a 2002 assault conviction in California, a protective order was issued that initially prohibited Brink from contacting the suspect or his mother except through an attorney. However, that order was later modified to allow supervised visits with the child.