Club shooter’s 2021 bomb case dropped, family uncooperative

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooter had charges dropped in a 2021 bomb threat case after family members who were terrorized in the incident refused to cooperate, according to the district attorney and unsealed court documents. Testifying at a hearing two months after the threat, the suspect’s mother and grandmother described Aldrich in court as a “loving” and “sweet” young person who did not deserve to be jailed, the prosecutor said. The documents describe how Aldrich told the frightened grandparents about firearms and bomb-making material in the grandparents’ basement and vowed not to let them interfere with plans for Aldrich to be “the next mass killer” and “go out in a blaze.” Aldrich — who uses they/them pronouns and is nonbinary, according to their attorneys — holed up in their mother’s home in a standoff with SWAT teams and warned about having armor-piercing rounds and a determination to “go to the end.” Investigators later searched the mother’s and grandparents’ houses and found and seized handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, body armor, magazines, a gas mask and a 12-gallon tub with explosive chemicals. Kraus said he had text messages from Aldrich’s mother saying she and the suspect were “hiding from somebody.” He later found out the family had been dodging subpoenas. Aldrich’s statements in the bomb case raised questions about whether authorities could have used Colorado’s “red flag” law to seize weapons from the suspect.