Heroic patron stomped on gunman’s head with high heels during Colorado club massacre
A trans woman and an Army veteran are being called heroes after fearlessly confronting the gunman in the deadly Colorado LGBTQ nightclub mas♚sacre.
Army veteran Richard Fierro was in the audience of a dragജ show at Club Q in Colorado Springs when Anderson Lee Aldrich allegedly opene🐽d fire Saturday night.
Fierro, 45, who served for 15 years in ൩the military, described how he immediately went into “combat mode” to take down the shooter.
“I just know I have to kill this guy beforꦫe he kills us,” Fierro of his split-second decision to claw through the panic and tackle the suspect.
After ꦬwrestling the gun away, Fierro got help from another patron, Thomas James, who moved the rifle out of the way.
Fierro then recalled a third person, whose identity ♐has not been revealed, stomping on the shooter’s head with her high heels.
“I grabbed 🍬the gun out of his hand and just started 🌼hitting him in the head, over and over,” he remembered.
Fierro initially identified the woman who assisted him as a “drag queen,” however, drag performer Del Lusional, who was also at Club Q during the attack, corrected the mistake on social media.
“The one who saved my life and stomped the shooter’s face in was not a dra▨g queen, she is a trans woman,” the🀅y late Monday.
“I also want to make it clear, I don’t think Richard knew that she’s not a drag performer. But now that we know, let’s correct it,” the performer added.
By the time police arrived, Aldrich, 22, had all♔egedly stopped resisting and Fierro feared 🌸he was dead.
The brave Army vet was also initially tackled by police, wh🎀o saw him coveܫred in blood and carrying a weapon.
He was held in the back of a squad car for over an hour before being released to his family and friends, including his wife and daughter, who suffered minor injur💛ies.
Five people — including Fierro’s daughter’s boyfriend, 22-year-old Raymond Green Vance — were killed in the shooting.
Seventeen more were injured. Aldrich also remains ho🌳spitalized.
Although the trans woman has not been identified, both she and Fierro are being praisꦓed for their brave actions.
“He saved a lot of lives,” Colorado Springs Mayor Joh𒀰n Suthers said of Fierro.
Suthers’ sentiment was reflec♕ted on social media, with several users calling out the significance of ಌthe trans woman’s heroics in the face of an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.
“Knowing the hero lady who stomped the terrorists face in with her stilettos until he was hamburger was a trans woman feels barest silver 🅺lining-y to me,” on Tuesday.
“[The shoot🐼er] compounded our grief on [Trans Day of Remembrance] with fresh agony, but at least one of us got to pay him back for𒐪 it in kind, sorta.”
“These are the real American heroes,” .
When asked about his relationship to the LGBTQ+ co𒐪mmunity, Fier𓆉ro said he has “nothing but love.”
He is worried, however, about how his daughter and other survivor🀅s will cope with their grief and trauma in the aftermath of the heinous🌟 crime.
“Nobody in that club asked to do this,” , recalling how he struggled after three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
They are all “going to have to live with it now,” he said.
Fierro’s story of survival comes as an increasingly distressing picture of the suspect emerges.🐲
Aldrich, who is reportedly the grandson of California lawmaker Randy Voepel, has been described as a gun enthusiast who used homophobic slurs.
In June 2021, Aldrich was charged with menacing and first-degree kidnapping after allegedly making a bomb threat to his mother. He was not pro🥃secuted, and evaded “red flag” laws until Saturday’s deadly showdown.
The 22-year-oldܫ, who is due in court after he is released from the hospital this week, likely faces five murder charges aꦆs well as five counts of bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury. It is unclear if federal hate crime charges will be filed separately.
