Let’s get the facts straight about the Club Q Shooting

On November 19, 2022, there was a mass shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Five people were killed, and at least 18 others were injured. The accused, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, or ​​Nicholas Franklin Brink, was also injured as three heroic patrons: Richard Fierro, an army veteran who was there to celebrate a birthday; Thomas James, another patron; and an unnamed trans woman, beat and subdued him. Aldrich was later taken to a local hospital.

Unfortunately, because of the tragedy's nature, some have used this shooting to purposely misinterpret the events, spread misinformation, or blame the victims for what happened, some even celebrating this happening to them. So the purpose of this article is to clear up misconceptions and make sure that the record is straight on what exactly happened as neutrally as possible

Is the shooter actually non-binary, and was this actually a hate crime?

Whether the shooter was or was not non-binary is entirely inconsequential to if the shooting was a hate crime, because by all evidence it undoubtedly was. The shooter targeted this nightclub specifically because not only was it planning on having a drag brunch the next day, but it was planned specifically to celebrate International Transgender Day of Remembrance: a day that was supposed to be to remember and mourn all of the hundreds, even thousands, of trans people who’ve died from hateful violence.

In an interview with CBS8, the shooter’s father, Aaron Brink, expressly said that he was relieved that his “[son’s] not gay” after hearing the news of his child doing a mass shooting at a “gay bar”. Brink also told CBS8 that he instilled anti-gay views into his son since they were young and said he had offered praise “for violent behavior really early. I told him it works. It is instant and you’ll get immediate results.” However, Aaron Brink has apologized for the actions of his child, telling reporters, in reference to those affected by the shooting, that “I’m so sorry, guys, for your loss,” Also adding that, “With no regard to politics, it’s human life. I’m so sorry. My soul goes out to you.” Though, it’s not hard to imagine what the shooter’s motives were, nor where they came from.

Shooter’s other history of violence

Obviously there are some troubling influences from the familial history of the shooter, but that is not all there is to their history of violence. According to The Gazette, a local newspaper, over a year ago in June of 2021, a man of the same name and age was arrested for making a bomb threat to a suburban neighborhood in the southeast of Colorado Springs. According to the newspaper, Aldrich's mother told police her son threatened her with a homemade bomb, among other weapons. A video showed Aldrich pacing around a home in tactical gear while yelling at and threatening the SWAT team stationed outside the home. Later that day, a video showed Aldrich leaving the home unarmed with hands in the air, surrendering to the police outside. Aldrich was charged with two counts of felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping, however, the charges were later dropped and the records sealed. The Colorado governor, Jared Polis, said by all indications these were the same people.

This could have been prevented

Red flag laws were in place in Colorado, but they weren’t triggered for this case and were ignored, even though they would have helped in preventing this shooting from happening. Certain people were negligent and disregarded the future threat of Aldrich having easy access to weapons despite his history of violent and unstable behavior. This could have been prevented if the police and government officials actually did what they were supposed to and followed the red flag laws that they put in place. Though they’re not solely responsible for this tragedy, there’s also why this person would want to do a shooting in the first place.

Who is to blame, and what caused this?

In recent years there has been a massive ramp-up in hateful and factually incorrect rhetoric against gay and trans people; and queer people in general, including drag queens. People have taken to spread the idea that these people are trying to “groom your kids” into being trans or gay. This is just categorically wrong. No one is “grooming” any kids, or anyone for that matter, and the fact that people believe this is incredibly disappointing. Not only is there no one trying to isolate kids from their friends or family, or depersonalizing them to get them dependent on another person or group of people so that they do something they don’t want to, as that is what real grooming is; but also, just telling people that queer people exist and it’s okay to be gay or trans is simply true, currently and historically, and it’s definitionally not grooming, as explained previously. All that the people who spread this hateful message end up doing is just devaluing the meaning of the word “grooming” and allowing actual grooming to take place and slip under the rug.

However, because of this increased anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, hate crimes and attacks against gay and trans people and LGBTQ-friendly spaces have massively increased. If you spend long enough villainizing a certain group of people and portraying their existence as this existential societal threat, with no one in power “doing anything about it”, eventually you’ll have people who will believe those lies and do “something” about it. For example, not that long ago, a doughnut shop was firebombed with a molotov cocktail after hosting a drag queen art show, and multiple children’s hospitals have received countless death threats and even bomb threats for accepting trans children into their care. Trans people are not to blame for this ramp-up in violence; it is the fault of those with massive platforms who spread this message of hate.

Whether it’s done intentionally or not, this kind of rhetoric has gotten people attacked and killed. It got way too out of hand a long time ago and now we’re experiencing the effects of this constant stream of misinformation and this campaign of hate and blood-thirst.

What can be done now?

Take this to heart and think about just how dangerous this kind of rhetoric and misinformation can be. It’s disheartening that things like this keep happening, in places that are supposed to be safe havens for these marginalized communities, just like what happened in Orlando just a few years back. There are plenty of LGBTQ bars here in Los Angeles and many more throughout California, and it’s sad to think that the same exact thing can happen here. There are real people’s lives at stake. The people who died that day were actual people. People just like you and me; people with lives and families; people with struggles; just people that, under different circumstances, could’ve been someone you knew.