The suspected Colorado nightclub shooter wanted to be ‘the next mass killer’ – and complained their grandparents’ plans to move south would ruin a plot to build a bomb, according to records of a previous arrest.
Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, got angry and threatened to kill his grandparents when they told them they had sold their house and planned to move to Florida in June 2021, records show obtained by KKTV 11 News.
The incident ended with the SWAT team invading Aldrich’s mother’s home, more than a year before Aldrich stormed an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs and killed five people.
The results of the 2021 bomb threat incident are under seal and it is unclear whether the charges were dismissed.
However, lawyers question why Aldrich still had access to deadly weapons after the arrest. Colorado’s “red flag” laws may have suppressed guns that were in their possession, advocates said.
Aldrich, who identifies as non-binary according to their lawyers, was living with their grandparents on June 18, 2021 when they announced their impending move.
The grandmother later told cops that Aldrich said they were “going to be the next mass killer and that they collected ammo, guns, body armor and stored them in the basement of the residence”.
The grandchild bragged about wanting to ‘go out on fire’ and started making what the grandmother believed was a bomb, records show obtained by KKTV. Aldrich complained that the move would interfere with their “bomb-making” and “plans to conduct a mass shooting and bombardment”, according to the records.
Aldrich claimed the bomb would be powerful enough to blow up a police department or federal building.
That wasn’t the primary cause for concern for Aldrich, whose grandparents said they made “threats of homicide” towards them and others. At a family meeting about the planned move, Aldrich loaded a gun in front of them and told them “you die today.
“I am loaded and ready. You’re not calling anyone,” Aldrich said, according to the arrest record.
Adrich drank vodka and said they needed the booze for “what he was about to do” before heading to their nearby mother’s house. Cops were alerted by a 911 call and contacted Aldrich’s mother, who was uncooperative and then texted her landlord to say Aldrich was in the house.
When a SWAT team showed up at the residence, Aldrich’s mother came out of the house saying “He let me go”.
El Paso County Sheriff’s Office take out apress release on the arrest, but the consequences of the case remain unclear with Aldrich tell the Gazette in August that their story about the arrest was “damaging” to their reputation.
“The whole case has been closed,” Aldrich reportedly told the Gazette, adding that they spent two months in jail after the arrest.
Aldrich has not been formally charged but could face murder and a hate crime for the mass shooting at Club Q on Saturday. In a court filing on Tuesday, defense attorneys said Aldrich identified as non-binary and used the pronouns they/them.
The accused appeared in a video hearing on Wednesday, visibly dazed and beaten, and the presiding judge saying “could the accused please state his name?” The prosecutor also referred to Aldrich as “he” during a press briefing after the hearing.
With post wires