The person accused of killing five people in a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub looked dazed and bloodied as he appeared in court, new mugshots released on Wednesday show. Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, was badly battered and covered in bruises after patrons at Club Q nightclub subdued him after he opened fire inside the gay nightclub on Saturday night.
Aldrich was hospitalized until Tuesday after he was taken down and subdued by a US Army veteran and a Club Q nightclub patron who rushed the suspect after the rounds were fired. He was then battered. The bruises were visible on his face and body during his court appearance. Aldrich has been ordered to be held without bail.
Battered and Bruised
The mugshots of Aldrich, who identifies himself as nonbinary and uses the pronouns they/them, show him with large patches of discoloration on their face and neck after they were subdued at the Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub on Saturday.
At their initial court appearance on Wednesday, Aldrich was cuffed, sporting a beard, and appeared to be cuffed and throughout the video hearing while slumped in a chair with their head resting on their shoulder. They were also wearing handcuffs.
Aldrich was shaken by their lawyers to stay attentive in the courtroom and answer the judge but he hardly could. "Could the defendant please state his name?" Judge Charlotte Ankeny asked.
"Anderson Aldrich," they replied weakly.
During the five-minute hearing, they sat almost still and only spoke when asked by the two public lawyers who were by their sides in the El Paso County Jail.
"Anderson Aldrich, did you watch the video concerning your constitutional rights in this case?" the judge asked.
"Yes," Aldrich replied in a whisper after a lengthy pause.
"Do you have any questions about those rights?" the judge said.
Again Aldrich went silent for several seconds before saying, "No."
Colorado Police today also made an Aldrich mugshot public, depicting them with numerous facial scratches and bruises from being battered and pistol-whipped by the club's brave patrons.
Serious Charges Await
Aldrich's next court appearance is scheduled on December 6, pending the judge's and attorneys' schedules. Although formal charges have not yet been brought against Aldrich, it is expected that he will be charged with murder and a hate crime. Court papers regarding their arrest have been sealed at the request of the prosecution.
Attorneys for the defense asked to see the arrest reports.
Aldrich is accused of entering Club Q immediately before the stroke of midnight on Saturday and opening fire, leaving five people dead and more than a dozen injured. The rampage came to an end after the alleged gunman was tackled by two clubgoers, who then disarmed them and held them until police arrived.
Authorities have not responded to questions about a probable reason, but a hate-crime accusation would indicate that prosecutors think they can demonstrate bigotry as a motive, maybe based on the victim's sexual orientation or gender identity.
This comes as Aldrich's estranged father porn star Aaron Brink said that he was relieved at learning that his son is "not gay" after learning that his son was allegedly responsible for killing five people and injuring 18.
Brink, who lives in Southern California, received a call from a defense lawyer informing him that his son Aldrich had been taken into custody for the shooting at Club Q.
"They started telling me about the incident, a shooting involving multiple people," Brink, who goes by the stage name Dick Delaware, told CBS 8.
"And then I go on to find out it's a gay bar. I said, 'God, is he gay?' I got scared, 'Sh*t, is he gay?' And he's not gay, so I said, 'Phhhewww'."
Brink continued by saying that their religion did not support homosexuality. "You know Mormons don't do gay. We don't do gay. There's no gays in the Mormon church. We don't do gay."
The Mormon Church acknowledged that Aldrich was a member even though he had not participated in church activities in a while, according to The Daily Beast.
Brink's sordid past also led his son Aldrich to change his name, according to the Denver Gazette. The gunman's original name is Nicholas Franklin Brink before he changed it to Anderson Lee Aldrich in 2016, according to a petition signed by his biological grandmother and step-grandfather and his mother.
It has been revealed that Brink was a major reason behind his son's decision to change his name.
Brink embarked on an unconventional career after a turbulent past that included juvenile imprisonment and a year in a federal jail for bringing marijuana into the US from Mexico. According to the MMA Junkie article, a friend pushed him to think about MMA fighting when he was released from prison at the age of 24.
Aldrich, Brink's son, is very different physically from his biological father, whom the suspect cited as the reason he sought to change his identity in 2016 at the age of 15. According to a petition, the name change was meant "to protect himself and his future from any connections to birth father," Aaron Brink.
