Near midnight on Saturday, November 19, the LGBT community of Colorado Springs, CO was shaken by yet another anti-LGBT mass shooting in the U.S. Empire. The site of the shooting was Club Q, a popular nightclub and a cultural fixture and “award-winning” venue, that served as a “safe place” for the Colorado Springs LGBT community. One survivor described Club Q as “a place we love, a place of peace, a place to be ourselves.” The perpetrator, armed with an AR-15 or similar rifle and a handgun, and wearing body armor, according to a Colorado Springs PD official, opened fire, killing at least five people and injuring at least 25; as of this moment, two of the hospitalized victims reportedly remain in critical condition.
The identities of the victims have been made available to the public: Daniel Aston (he/him), 28, a transgender man who worked as a bartender at Club Q, and that night was performing at the club; Derrick Rump (he/him), a bartender at Club Q; Kelley Loving (she/her), 40, a transgender woman who was visiting Colorado Springs and was at Club Q as a patron; Raymond Green Vance (he/him), 22, a patron visiting Club Q with his girlfriend, who identified as a pro-LGBT ally; and Ashley Paugh (she/her), 35, a patron.
Critically, the shooting took place during a drag show; it was also the night before the international Transgender Day of Rememberance (TDOR), a commemoration started in 1999 and observed annually on November 20 to memorialize all transgender people who’ve been lost to murder. So far in 2022, the murders of more than 30 transgender people have been reported — but the real figures are much higher.
Club Q had publicly advertised plans to host an “all ages drag brunch” on the morning of Sunday, November 20, to celebrate Transgender Day of Rememberance.
In recent months, fascists across the U.S. Empire have focused particularly on attacking drag shows. For instance, this summer, similarly themed family-friendly drag brunches were targeted by Christian-fascist organizations in Dallas and Houston, Texas. The fascists accused the LGBT community of attempting to “indoctrinate” children. Such organized anti-LGBT actions have been promoted by fascists in the media, and their demands have received political support from some extreme-right elected officials, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has threatened to have parents who take their children to LGBT-friendly venues charged with child abuse. Meanwhile, in recent years, across the country, Republican-controlled state governments are instituting laws to criminalize the parents of transgender children, as well as pro-trans doctors and other medical professionals, by legally redefining gender-affirming healthcare as child abuse; other laws compel public schools to misgender and otherwise discriminate against transgender children. This is despite the fact that gender-affirming healthcare is safe, improves quality of life, and significantly reduces the risk of suicide in a section of the population that is particularly vulnerable. The Democrats, meanwhile, have stood idly by — as is their role in the duopoly of American fascism.
Fascists across the U.S. Empire have become increasingly emboldened to commit anti-LGBT hate crimes, especially against transgender and gender-variant people. Mass shootings and other acts of targeted anti-LGBT violence are becoming the norm, rather than the exception.
Despite this, in a truly shameful fashion, the Colorado Springs PD and the FBI have conspicuously declined to characterize the mass shooting as a hate crime; the chief of police stated to reporters that the terrorist’s motive has yet to be determined. When asked whether the terrorist attack would be investigated as a hate crime, the local district attorney said, “this will be investigated and is being investigated in that lens,” but that specific charges had not yet been determined, and whether to charge the suspect with a hate crime was still under consideration. Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers has acknowledged that the mass shooting “has all the appearances of a hate crime,” but then cautioned that the suspect’s motive was still under investigation. Other Democratic politicians, including President Biden, have characterized the mass shooting as an attack on the LGBT community.
Evidently, the terrorist, now identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, was arrested in June 2021, after threatening to harm his mother, who called the police. Aldrich had threatened to make a homemade bomb, and planned to procure a stockpile of weapons. Aldrich at first barricaded himself inside his house, but police negotiators eventually managed to convince him to surrender himself, at which point he was apprehended. He was charged with multiple felonies, including kidnapping.
A friend of the terrorist’s mother said in an interview, “Why is he not in jail, after that happening? After that initial day, police never reached out… [F]or him to be out there, and [to] have access to weapons after that incident, I don’t understand it.”
The Gazette, a Colorado newspaper, reported that the charges against Aldrich were ultimately dropped, and his case sealed; the reason has not been revealed. Interestingly, however, according to Heavy, Aldrich is the grandson of a Colorado state assemblyman, Randy Voepel, an extreme-right Republican who supported Trump’s January 6, 2021 coup attempt, in which hundreds of MAGA fascists stormed the U.S. Capitol. It is possible that Aldrich was freed after leveraging this political connection.
It is unsurprising that the terrorist has such a history, and it is just as unsurprising that he was ultimately set free, and allowed to continue plotting violence. This is not the first time that a fascist domestic terrorist has been known to police before committing a mass shooting; it is not the first time that police have been warned in advance, and failed to act.
If the enemy state truly wanted to stop these mass shootings, then this fascist terrorist, like so many before him, would have been apprehended by “red flag” laws. It’s no coincidence that so many mass shooters have had violent histories — in particular, histories of threatening women and LGBT people — and criminal records. Granted the most generous interpretation of the facts, we may condemn the enemy state incompetent, that is, incapable of preventing fascist violence and protecting oppressed communities. The truth, however, is that the enemy state is not incompetent, but actively malicious.
At a fundamental level, the U.S. Empire’s criminal justice system, from the police to the courts to the prisons, is not designed to prevent violence against the oppressed and marginalized masses, against women and LGBT people, against the poor — against anyone, except for the most privileged sections of the ruling classes. The U.S. criminal justice system is fundamentally designed for one, and only one, purpose: To protect the private property and the general class-interests of the ruling classes, first and foremost the monopoly-capitalists.
This mass shooting was no different. In the end, the police did not save the LGBT community gathered at Club Q — the community saved themselves.
According to reports based on statements from city officials, police, Club Q’s official social media, and survivor testimony, the shooting ended within minutes, when multiple Club Q patrons, including a transgender woman, tackled, disarmed, “beat up,” and subdued the terrorist, several minutes before police and emergency medical services arrived. While reports continue to emerge, and the facts continue to be gathered, a clear picture is developing. One survivor recounted at a vigil on Sunday that the bartender on shift at Club Q “jumped in front of the gunman,” sacrificing his life to protect the patrons. The bartender’s sacrifice allowed a patron to charge the shooter, “grab a handgun” from him, and hit him with it, knocking him down. According to the Club Q owners, who reviewed security camera footage, after the first patron subdued the shooter, a second patron then got on top of the shooter and helped the first patron hold him down, pinning him on the floor until police arrived. “He saved dozens and dozens of lives. Stopped the man cold,” said one of the owners, referring to one of the patrons. One of the persons killed in the terrorist attack, Raymond Green Vance, lost his life while assisting his girlfriend and another patron in finding a hiding place.
Club Q posted the following statement on its Facebook page:
Club Q is devastated by the senseless attack on our community. Our [prayers] and thoughts are with all the victims and their families and friends. We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack.
Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers praised the actions of the patrons, stating that “their actions clearly saved lives.” The chief of police made a similar comment.
The brave individuals who acted to defend their fellow patrons were, without a doubt, true heroes. To put one’s own body in the way of an armed fascist, intent on carrying out mass murder, would rightly be considered heroic under any circumstances. But the bravery of those patrons was not merely an isolated instance of heroism — it was an act of solidarity with their LGBT community. It was an act of community self-defense, of community self-reliance. And it is this spirit of community solidarity and community self-reliance that every conscious LGBT person must strive to embody and work to cultivate in our communities.
As the fascist garrison encircles our communities, where can we turn?
Not to elected officials, not to the police, and not to the courts — that much is clear. The police don’t keep us safe; the police keep us repressed, keep us threatened, keep us marginalized. The police aid and abet the fascists who seek to murder us and the police protect the government officials who seek to drive us back underground. Our LGBT forebears couldn’t be fooled by police-sponsored pride parades and “diversity training” copaganda. Our forebears knew what most of us still know, and what the rest of us must relearn: that the police are our enemies. The police are the front-line repressive arm of the fascist enemy state, of our oppressors.
The Democrats, the “moderate wing” of U.S. fascism, are once more calling for “gun control” — for disarming the masses. President Biden, long a supporter of banning “assault rifles,” was quoted as saying, “When will we decide we’ve had enough? We must address the public health epidemic of gun violence in all of its forms.” Meanwhile, the “liberal” side of the capitalist media is already pushing for “gun control” in the wake of this tragedy.
For many in our traumatized community, this liberal “solution” will hold considerable pathos, especially given that “gun rights” is an agenda associated with the same right-wing of fascism that continually perpetrates vigilante and state violence against us. But the truth is that, throughout the history of the U.S. Empire, gun control has only ever been used to disarm the oppressed; it has never been used to disarm the oppressor. On the other hand, we do not endorse the common right-wing slogan, “Only a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun,” which, in truth, is a call for more civilian-fascist settler militiamen to be deputized against racially oppressed people. Our slogan is that only by arming and organizing the oppressed can we disarm and overthrow our oppressors, their standing armies, and their civilian-fascist auxiliaries.
This slogan was issued by Karl Marx over 170 years ago:
Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.
No, LGBT communities cannot rely on help from the fascist enemy state.
LGBT communities, especially transgender people, must collectively defend ourselves. In no uncertain terms, this means that we must begin arming and organizing ourselves, and our communities, for self-defense, and in so doing build collective self-reliance.
We keep us safe — no one else will.
We know that this is a daunting task. For transgender militants and comrades who are unsure of where to begin, we encourage you to reach out to the Lavender Guard, a new revolutionary organization focused on community self-defense, community self-reliance, and mutual aid.
