Colorado club shooting survivor: ‘I want to be resilient’

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Deanne VanScyoc said she dropped to the floor behind a pool table at Club Q and called 911 as the first shots rang out just before midnight, hitting people at the bar.

VanScyoc was facing the entrance from behind a glass wall when the shooter came in, she said. The shooter turned right and fired a single shot toward the bar, then three more in rapid succession, then a flurry of shots. As pop music pounded and a strobe light flashed, VanScyoc saw the shooter, in body armor, move in a crouch down a ramp, rifle at eye level, and head toward the dance floor.

“There was no hesitation,” VanScyoc told The Associated Press in an interview.

Patrons at the gay club that night were celebrating a drag queen’s birthday and the atmosphere had been festive. When the shooting started, much of the crowd already had left the dance floor and was gathered in an enclosed patio just off the dance floor.

Five people were killed and 17 wounded by gunfire in an attack that unfolded over just minutes, according to authorities.

As the shooter moved deeper into the club, VanScyoc heard another volley of shots. The shooter, who police identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, sprayed bullets across the dance hall. Partygoers along the walls flipped over tables and ducked behind them, according to VanScyoc and a friend who was there, A.J. Bridgewater. The two recounted what happened during the shooting while standing beside the growing memorial of flowers outside the club on Tuesday night.

VanScyoc didn’t see the victims get shot, she said, “but I heard screams.”

Another patron, James Slaugh, said he had been getting ready to leave for the night when, “all of a sudden we just hear, ‘pop, pop, pop.’ As I turn, I took a bullet in my arm from the back.”

Slaugh, who spoke from his hospital bed, said he watched others around him fall, including his boyfriend, who was shot in the leg, and his sister, who survived with bullet wounds in 13 places. The scariest part of the shooting, he said, was not knowing whether the assailant would fire again.

As she saw the shooter move toward the patio — viewable from the dance hall through a glass door — VanScyoc took her chance and jumped up from behind the pool table to run for an exit.

Out on the patio, Bridgewater said he started to flee as the first volleys rang out, but panicked and tripped over a stool. He regained his footing and rushed with a group of about 20 people toward a closed garage door that led to a fenced-in area. “It was flight or die,” he said.

Neither VanScyoc nor Bridgewater saw Aldrich subdued, but believed it happened as the attacker moved toward the patio. Aldrich was pulled to the ground by two club patrons — Thomas James and Richard Fierro — and beaten.

To those who frequented Club Q, the violence also desecrated one of the few places the Colorado Springs LGBTQ community could fully embrace their authentic selves.

The motive for the attack is still being investigated. A judge ordered Aldrich to be held without bail during an initial court appearance Wednesday on preliminary charges of murder and hate crimes. Officials say Aldrich was armed with a semi-automatic rifle and at least one other gun was recovered at the scene.

Once VanScyoc had made it outside, she moved to the front entrance of the club, where she said James had collapsed with a bullet wound in his chest after helping subdue the suspect. She held pressure on the wound with one hand and spoke to police on her phone until paramedics arrived.

Meanwhile, Bridgewater and the crowd on the patio had opened the door open with some difficulty, scaled the fence, and ran toward a nearby Walgreens, pounding on the door to no response. The group moved next to a 7-Eleven, where they found another clubgoer, Barrett Hudson, lying face down with seven bullet wounds in his back as people on the scene tried to stop the bleeding.

In the early morning hours after the shooting, Bridgewater and others gathered in a friend’s apartment, watching the story unfold in the media. He kept trying to call Club Q bartender Derrick Rump, one of Bridgewater’s closest friends, then learned he was among those killed.

“We all lost it,” said Bridgewater.

The days since, he said, have been a blur of “silence, tears, a moment of laughter, chaos.”

One man who has frequented Club Q for decades was just opening up a tab at the bar when he was shot in the back. Another man was about to leave the club with his group when he heard a “pop, pop, pop” and took a bullet to his arm — then watched his boyfriend and sister fall to the floor.

They are some of the 17 people wounded by gunfire Saturday when a 22-year-old man went on a shooting rampage at Club Q, a well-known club for the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs. On Tuesday, they shared the horror of seeing their loved ones shot down in front of them, as well as the hope they felt as people helped each other in the chaos.

Ed Sanders, 63, said he had been waiting in line at the bar, had made his way up to the front and given the bartender his credit card when he was hit in the back — right between the shoulder blades. Surprised, he turned to look at the gunman, only to be hit again in the thigh as another volley of shots were fired.

“I fell. And everybody fell,” Sanders said in video statements released Tuesday by UCHealth Memorial Hospital Center. “It was very traumatic. I shielded another woman with my coat … there was a lot of chaos.”

James Slaugh said he, his boyfriend and his sister were getting ready to leave the club when, “all of a sudden we just hear, ‘pop, pop, pop.’ As I turn, I took a bullet in my arm from the back.”

Slaugh, who spoke to The Associated Press from his hospital bed, said he watched others around him fall — including his boyfriend, who was shot in the leg, and his sister, who had bullet wounds in 13 places. He quickly called the police, heard several more shots, then nothing. The scariest part of the shooting, he said, was not knowing whether the gunman would fire again.

Five people were killed in the shooting, which stopped after the gunman was disarmed by patrons.

The motive for the attack is still being investigated and the man has not been formally charged. Police say he was armed with multiple firearms, including an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, and possible hate crimes are being considered.

“I want to be resilient. I’m a survivor,” Sanders said. “I’m not going to be taken out by some sick person.”

Sanders has been a patron of Club Q for 20 years and even went to the club’s opening night decades ago. He wore a hospital gown and had an oxygen tube in his nose in the video recorded by the hospital.

He said that after the 2016 Pulse gay nightclub shooting in Florida, which killed 49 people, Sanders thought about what he would do if something similar happened at Club Q — but he never dreamed it would become reality.

“I’m smiling now because I am happy to be alive,” Sanders said. “I dodged a major event in my life and came through it, and that’s part of who I am as a survivor.”

Sanders knew many of the victims, including the “door lady” and two bartenders who died. Sanders said that after the shooting, people who weren’t hit were helping each other “just like a family would do.”

Sanders said the shot to his back missed vital organs but broke a rib. He said he now has a concave wound in his back and will need skin grafts. Sanders was also shot in the thigh, and said “that was the most blood.”

“I think this incident underlines the fact that LGBT people need to be loved,” Sanders said.

For Slaugh, Club Q was a place where he felt safe after coming out as gay at age 24. It was where he met his partner, Jancarlos Del Valle, eight months ago, and it was where they took his sister, Charlene, on Saturday night to cheer her up from a recent breakup, as well as the death of their mother from COVID-19 a year ago.

Slaugh said that after the gunman was subdued, the club instantly became a community again. Patrons grabbed paper towels to try to stop bleeding wounds. One man told Slaugh he would be OK and kissed him on the forehead.

“That was such a reassurance to me,” he said. “That hope stayed there.”

Del Valle and James were rushed to one hospital and Charlene, who had more extensive injuries, was taken to another. James said he did not find out what happened to his sister until the next day. A community of support has formed around the Slaughs, including a GoFundMe campaign to pay for medical bills. Messages have poured in from around the world.

“Being shot, being a victim of this whole thing -- it left me with a sense of more hope than anything else, especially with everyone coming together,” he said. “This is not a time to be afraid. This is not a time to let in one awful person. This is a time to come together.”