Shooting spree at a nightclub in Colorado Springs: The police speak of 5 dead in Club Q
“Thank you to the quick responses from heroic customers who overwhelmed the shooter and ended this hate attack,” Club Q wrote on Facebook.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — An assailant opened fire at a Colorado gay nightclub late Saturday, killing five people and wounding 18 before appearing to be overpowered by patrons, officials said.
Authorities received a report of a shooting at Club Q at 11:57 p.m. and responded within minutes, Lt. Pamela Castro of the Colorado Springs Police Department.
The violence marks the sixth mass killing this month and comes in a year when the nation was rocked by the death of 21 in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Castro had few details other than the number of dead and wounded. She said the suspect was injured but didn’t know how and that the FBI was there and assisting.
The police department scheduled a news conference on the investigation at 8:00 a.m. (10:00 a.m. EST).
The latest incident came as anti-gay rhetoric was ramped up by extremists. In a statement, Club Q described the shooting as a hate attack.
“Club Q is devastated by the senseless attack on our community,” the club posted on its Facebook page. It said its prayers are with victims and families, adding: “We thank the quick responses from heroic customers who overwhelmed the shooter and ended this hate attack.”
Club Q is a gay and lesbian nightclub that offers a “Drag Diva Drag Show” on Saturdays, according to its website.
In addition to the drag show, Club Q’s Facebook page said planned entertainment included a “punk and alternative show” before a birthday dance party with a Sunday “brunch for all ages.”
Colorado Springs is a city of about 480,000 located about 70 miles south of Denver and home to the US Air Force Academy and Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical Christian ministry.
In November 2015, three people were killed and eight injured at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the city when authorities said a man opened fire because he wanted to wage “war” on the clinic for performing abortions.
The motive behind Saturday’s shooting wasn’t immediately known, but it brought back memories of the 2016 massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., which killed 49 people. And it happened in a state that has seen several notorious mass murders, including at Columbine High School in 1999, at a movie theater in suburban Denver in 2012, and at a convenience store in Boulder last year.
In June, 31 members of the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and charged with conspiring to riot at a Pride event. Experts warned that extremist groups could see Anti-gay rhetoric as a call to action.
Last month, a fundamentalist Idaho pastor told his small Boise congregation that gay, lesbian and transgender people should be executed by the government, echoing similar sermons by a Texas fundamentalist pastor.
Since 2006 there have been 523 mass killings with 2,727 deaths on November 19th The Associated Press/USA Today database of mass murders in the United States
This is an evolving story.
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https://www.kvue.com/article/news/nation-world/colorado-nightclub-shooting/507-38977605-7106-44a4-99c1-357380e7f703 Shooting spree at a nightclub in Colorado Springs: The police speak of 5 dead in Club Q
