5 dead, 18 injured in shooting at Colorado nightclub

Five people were killed and 18 killed when gunmen opened fire at a gay nightclub early Sunday morning in the latest mass shooting to hit the country in a year when anti-gay rhetoric was amplified among extremists. injured.

Lieutenant Pamela Castro of the Colorado Springs Police Department said police received a report of a shooting at Club Q at 11:57 p.m.

Castro said one suspect was injured and is being treated. She said it wasn’t immediately clear if the attacker was shot by a police officer.

Club Q is a gay and lesbian nightclub that hosts a “Drag Divas Drag Show” on Saturdays, according to its website.

In addition to the drag show published on the website, according to Club Q’s Facebook page, the evening’s scheduled entertainment includes “punk and alternative shows” before a birthday dance party, and Sunday An “All Ages Brunch” is scheduled to begin at noon on .

“Club Q is devastated by this senseless attack on our community,” the club posted on its Facebook page. We appreciate the heroic customer’s swift response that ended the hate attack.”

Colorado Springs is a city of approximately 480,000 located 112 kilometers south of Denver, home of the United States Air Force Academy.

In November 2015, three people were killed and eight injured when authorities said they opened fire on a man at the city’s Planned Parenthood clinic after he performed an abortion in an attempt to start a “war” on the clinic. did.

The motive behind the shooting was not immediately clear, but it brought back memories of the 2016 massacre that killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It happened in a state that has seen several notorious mass murders, including suburban movie theaters and Boulder supermarkets 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 have warned that extremist groups may see anti-gay rhetoric as a call to action.

The month before, a fundamentalist Idaho pastor told his small Boise congregation that gay, lesbian and transgender people should be executed by the government. The government is juxtaposed with similar sermons from a fundamentalist pastor in Texas.

There have been 523 mass murders since 2006, with 2,727 dead as of Nov. 19, according to the Associated Press/USA Today Database of Mass Murders in the United States.