The Colorado LGBTQ nightclub shooting suspect boasted during a bomb threat in 2021 that he planned to become “the next mass killer.” But all charges were dropped and there was no record showing guns were seized under the state's “red flag” law.
In this image from video provided by Leslie Bowman, Anderson Lee Aldrich surrenders to police at a home where his mother, Laura Voepel, was renting a room in Colorado Springs, Colo., on June 18, 2021.
But charges against Aldrich for the actions that day were dropped for reasons the district attorney has refused to explain due to the case being sealed and there was no record showing guns were seized under Colorado’slaw with similarly no explanation from the sheriff. All of it could be one of the most glaring missed warnings in America’s sad litany of mass violence because, just a year and a half later, Aldrich was free to carry out the plan to become “the next mass killer.
Criminal defense lawyers with whom AP shared the law enforcement documents say they questioned why charges were not pursued in the 2021 incident given the grandparents’ detailed statements, a tense standoff at the mother’s home and a subsequent house search that found bomb-making materials that Aldrich claimed had enough firepower to blow up an entire police department and a federal building.
In the absence of that file, there are only scattered clues about what happened after Aldrich’s 2021 arrest, including AldrichThe Gazette of Colorado Springs in August about spending two months in jail as a result of the incident and asking the publication to remove or update its web coverage about it, asserting the case had been dismissed. “There is absolutely nothing there, the case was dropped,” Aldrich said in a phone message, adding, “It is damaging to my reputation.
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