Joshua Thurman, a Colorado Springs resident, told ABC-affiliated KRDO he was on the dance floor when he heard shots fired and mistook them for music. When he realized what was happening, he said he and a customer ran to the dressing room, where a drag performer was waiting.
"I made them lock the doors, and we got down on the ground and cut off the lights immediately," Thurman said.
He told KRDO he and the others in that dressing room “heard everything,” from more shots to the assailant being beaten up and police coming in.
Thurman said he wasn’t supposed to be in the city but came back from a trip to Denver a day early to celebrate his birthday.
“This is our only safe space here in the Springs, and so for this to get shot up, like well what are we going to do now?” Thurman asked. “Where are we going to go?”
Adrian Vasquez, deputy chief of the Colorado Springs Police Department, identified the suspected shooter as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich during a news conference on Sunday. Vasquez said the shooter, using a "long rifle," entered the club and immediately began firing.
"While the suspect was inside of the club, at least two heroic people inside the club confronted and fought with the suspect and were able to stop the suspect from continuing to kill and harm others," Vasquez said. “We owe them a great debt of thanks.”
According to a news release from the El Paso County Sheriff's Office in Colorado, Aldrich was earlier at the center of a call to dispatchers and was arrested on two counts of felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping. His mother had called 911 on June 18, 2021 because her son was "threatening to cause harm to her with a homemade bomb, multiple weapons, and ammunition," according to the release.
