Gay club shooting suspect evades Colorado gun laws
A year and a half before he was arrested in the Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooting that killed five, Anderson Lee Aldrich threatened his mother with a self-made bomb as bomb squads and crisis negotiators talk to him It is said that he forced his neighbors in surrounding homes to evacuate. to surrender.
However, despite the horrors, there is no public record that prosecutors have filed a felony kidnapping and intimidation charge against Aldrich, and police and relatives suspected that authorities would seize the weapons and give the man’s mother ammunition. There is also no public record of any attempt to invoke Colorado’s “red flag” laws that would allow You say you were with me
Gun control advocates say Aldrich’s June 2021 threat is an example of a red flag law being ignored with deadly consequences. It’s not clear whether the law could have prevented Saturday night’s attack, but such a gun seizure would have been in effect for only 14 days, and a judge could extend him by six-month increments. There is a nature. Profile with Law Enforcement Agencies.
Colorado Rep. Tom Sullivan, whose son died in the Aurora Theater shooting, sponsored the state’s red flags law passed in 2019. says. “This should have alerted them. Should have put him on their radar.”
But laws allowing the removal of guns from people deemed dangerous to themselves or others are largely unused, especially in El Paso County, home of Colorado Springs. Just before midnight, he fired a long gun and opened fire before being subdued by patrons.
Colorado has one of the lowest rates of red flag use, despite widespread gun ownership and several high-profile mass shootings, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Courts have issued 151 gun surrender orders through 2021 after the law took effect in April 2019. That’s one-third of the percentage of orders issued in the 19 states and the District of Columbia that include surrender laws.
El Paso County seems particularly hostile to the law. It joined nearly 2,000 counties nationwide to declare a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” to protect their constitutional right to bear arms and passed a 2019 resolution. It states that the Red Flag Act “violates the inalienable right of law-abiding citizens” and forces police to “force entry into premises and seize property of citizens for whom there is no evidence of a crime. ”
County Sheriff Bill Elder said his office will wait for families to ask the courts for surrender orders and will not voluntarily petition unless there is an “extreme circumstance” and “presumed cause” of the crime. said no.
El Paso County, population 730,000, had 13 temporary firearm removals by the end of last year, four of which lasted at least six months.
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The county sheriff’s office declined to comment on what happened after Aldrich was arrested last year, including whether anyone asked him to remove his weapon. The release said no explosives were found, but made no mention of whether the weapon had been recovered.
Spokesperson Lt. Deborah Mainat referred further questions to the District Attorney’s Office regarding the case.
An online search of court records found no formal charges filed against Aldrich in last year’s lawsuit. Also, the Colorado Springs Gazette, in an update to its article on the bomb threat, reported that prosecutors did not pursue charges in the case and the record was sealed.
The Gazette also reported on Sunday that it received a call from Aldrich in August asking it to remove a story about the incident.
“There is absolutely nothing there. The lawsuit has been dropped. Please either delete the article or update it,” Aldrich said in a voice message to the editor. rice field.”
District Attorney’s Office spokesman Howard Black declined to comment on whether charges have been filed.
“No additional information will be announced at this time,” Black said. “These are questions that are still under investigation.”
An AP survey of 19 states and the District of Columbia found that red flag laws have been used about 15,000 times since 2020, less than 10 times per 100,000 adults in each state. Experts said it was disastrously low and insufficient to influence gun homicides.
Just this year, authorities in Highland Park, Illinois, were criticized for refusing to snatch a gun from a 21-year-old boy accused of shooting a 4th of July parade that killed seven people. In 2019, police had been warned about him after he threatened to “kill everyone” at his home.
Duke University sociologist Jeffrey Swanson, an expert in red flag law, said the Colorado Springs incident could be another missed warning sign.
“This seems like a no-brainer if you know your mother has a gun,” he said. maybe.”
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Condon reported from New York.
Gay club shooting suspect evades Colorado gun laws
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