Club Q shooting victims sue El Paso County for failing to enforce red flag laws

DENVER | Victims and mothers of those killed in the 2022 mass shooting at a Q LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs have filed lawsuits, alleging the killings could have been avoided if the sheriff’s office had used the state’s red flag law. the state after clear warning signs that the shooter intended to do so. commit violence.

The plaintiffs in the two lawsuits filed Sunday include survivor Barrett Hudson, who still has three gunshot wounds in his body from that night, as well as other victims and relatives. They are expected to speak about the lawsuit at a news conference Tuesday — which marks the second anniversary of the nightclub shooting.

The families and victims also accuse the nightclub owners in the lawsuit of reducing Club Q’s security detail from five or more people to just one in the years before the shooting, prioritizing profits over than security.

“Club Q presented itself as a “safe place” for LGBTQIA+ people. But it was a facade,” they can read in the two complaints, which notably mention negligence.

One of the focal points of both lawsuits was the refusal of El Paso County commissioners and the then-sheriff to enforce Colorado’s red flag law passed in 2019, which allows law enforcement to temporarily take a person’s firearm if they are considered a threat to themselves or others.

Natalie Sosa, a spokeswoman for El Paso County, said she does not comment on pending litigation.

The county commissioners and sheriff viewed the red flag law as an encroachment on gun rights and passed a resolution to become a “Second Amendment Preserve County” and, alongside the sheriff at the time, vowed to “actively resist” the bill, according to court documents. .

The lawsuits argue that authorities should have used the red flag law after the shooter, Anderson Aldrich, was arrested a year before he entered Club Q shooting indiscriminately.

Those killed in the shooting were Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Daniel Aston, Derrick Rump and Ashley Paugh.

In 2021, Aldrich was arrested for allegedly kidnapping and threatening to kill his grandparents, claiming he would become the “next mass killer” and collecting ammunition, bomb-making materials, guns and bulletproof vests, according to court documents.

“You clearly had something else planned,” a judge told Aldrich during a 2021 hearing, according to documents previously obtained by The Associated Press. “It was about saving all these guns and trying to make this bomb and making statements about other people being involved in some sort of shooting and something huge.”

The judge then dismissed all charges for “failure to prosecute” during a four-minute hearing, in part because the prosecution had been unable to serve subpoenas on the main victims, according to witnesses. documents obtained by the AP.

Authorities did not attempt to remove Aldrich’s guns, the lawsuits allege, and “this deliberate inaction allowed the shooter to continue to access the firearms, directly enabling the attack on Club Q.”

The lawsuits separately allege negligence and wrongful death against the El Paso County commissioners and the former sheriff.

Aldrich, now 24, pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to life in prison in 2023 in state court. A year later, Aldrich pleaded guilty in federal court to hate crimes and was sentenced to an additional 55 life terms in prison.

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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-reported issues.

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