The alleged Colorado nightclub shooter wanted to be “the next mass killer” – and whined that his grandparents’ plans to move down south would ruin a plot to build a bomb, according to records from a previous arrest.
Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, flew into a rage and threatened to kill his grandparents when they told him they had sold their house and planned to move to Florida in June 2021, according to records obtained by KKTV 11 News.
The incident ended with the SWAT team swarming Aldrich’s mother’s home, more than a year before Aldrich allegedly stormed an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs and killed five people.
The results in the 2021 bomb-threat incident are under seal and it’s not clear if the charges were dismissed.
However, advocates are questioning why Aldrich still had access to deadly weapons after the arrest. Colorado “red flag” laws may have removed guns that were in his possession, advocates have said.
Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary according to his attorneys, was living with their grandparents on June 18, 2021 when they dropped the news of their pending move.
The grandmother later told cops Aldrich said they were “going to be the next mass killer and has been collecting ammunition, firearms, bullet-proof body armor and storing it in the basement of the residence.”
The grandchild had bragged about wanting to “go out in a blaze” and had started making what the grandmother believed was a bomb, according to the records obtained by KKTV. Aldrich complained the move would interfere with “his bomb making” and “his plans to conduct a mass shooting and bombing,” the records stated.
Aldrich claimed the bomb would be powerful enough to blow up a police department or federal building.
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It wasn’t the first cause of concern for Aldrich, whose grandparents said had made “homicidal threats” toward them and others. At a family meeting about the planned move, Aldrich loaded a gun in view of them and told them “you guys die today.
“I’m loaded and ready. You’re not calling anyone,” Aldrich said, according to the arrest record.
He downed vodka and said he needed the booze for “what he’s about to do” before he went to his mother’s house nearby. Cops were alerted by a 911 call and contacted Aldrich’s mother, who wasn’t cooperative and later texted her landlord to say Aldrich was in the house.
When a SWAT team showed up to the residence, Aldrich’s mother came out of the home saying “He let me go.”
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office put out a news release on the arrest, but the results of the case remain unclear with Aldrich telling the Gazette in August that their story on the arrest was “damaging” to his reputation.
“The entire case was dismissed,” Aldrich allegedly told the Gazette, adding they had spent two months in jail after the arrest.
Aldrich hasn’t been formally charged but may face a murder and hate-crime rap for the mass shooting at Club Q on Saturday. In a court filing Tuesday, defense attorneys said Aldrich identified as nonbinary and used the pronouns they/them.
The accused appeared in a video court hearing on Wednesday, visibly dazed and battered, and the presiding judge saying “could the defendant please state his name?” The prosecutor also referred to Aldrich as “he” during a press briefing after the hearing.
With Post wires
