COLORADO SPRINGS—Anderson Lee Aldrich kept an assault-type rifle and a burner phone in a one-bedroom apartment near the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs where he lived with his mother until a couple of months ago, according to Xavier Kraus, a former neighbor in the same apartment hallway.
Kraus, 23, who said he once considered Aldrich a friend, also told The Daily Beast that the 22-year-old suspect in the mass shooting at the LGBTQ club Club Q that killed five people and injured 18 more on Saturday frequently used the word “f*ggot.”
Aldrich has since been charged with five counts of murder and five hate crimes in connection with the latest episode of mass gun violence in America to target the LGBTQ community.
“There would be times where he and his mom would get into fights, arguments, because he would be saying hateful things about whoever he was angry with,” Kraus told The Daily Beast. “He said things sometimes that probably should have been alarming to me. He used the term “f*ggot” a lot. Most of the time it came from a place of anger.”