COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — One year has passed since the shooting at the Club Q nightclub in Colorado Springs. Five people were killed, and 17 others were wounded.
Here are the five people who lost their lives on that fateful night.
>The video above aired on Nov. 21, 2022
Daniel Aston
Daniel Aston moved to Colorado Springs from Tulsa, Oklahoma two years before the shooting and worked at Club Q as a bartender and entertainer.
“He lit up a room, always smiling, always happy and silly," his mother, Sabrina, remembered.
Sabrina said her son, a transgender man, took to the club because it allowed him to be fully authentic in one of the state's most conservative metro areas. She said it gave his identity room to breathe and that he liked helping the LGBTQ+ community.
Aston attended Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma where he served as president of its LGBTQ+ club. He is remembered as a proud and loving uncle who loved the responsibility of being a protector and mentor.
His boyfriend, Wyatt Kent, said he knew Daniel "first and foremost as a friend at the club before I knew him as a boyfriend...as a partner."
Kelly Loving
Kelly Loving had just moved to Colorado a month before the shooting, according to her longtime friend Natalee Skye Bingham.
Bingham described Loving, a transgender woman, as a confident and bright spirit and credits Loving for helping her to become the woman she is today.
"She was like my trans-mother," Bingham said. "You know, in the gay community, we congregate together to create our families, and some of us are disowned, or just not welcomed. I looked up to Kelly as if she was my own mother."
She said she will cherish Loving for teaching her to stay confident and truthful to who she is.
"She was fearless. She was a welcoming person. She would give you the shirt off her back, if you were asking for it, or the last dollar to her name, she would give it to you. She would give anything and everything to anyone," Bingham said.
Tiffany Loving, Kelly's sister, released the following statement after her passing:
“My condolences go out to all the families who lost someone in this tragic event, and to everyone struggling to be accepted in this world. My sister was a good person. She was loving and caring and sweet. Everyone loved her. Kelly was a wonderful person."
Ashley Paugh
Ashley Paugh's husband, Kurt, remembers Ashley as a loving wife and an amazing mother. She was also a loving aunt, whose nieces and nephews were devastated by her loss.
"She had a huge heart," Kurt Paugh said in a statement. "I know that Ashley cared about so many people. She helped so many people through her work at Kids Crossing, a nonprofit that helps find loving homes for foster children. She would do anything for the kids – traveling all over southeastern Colorado, from Pueblo and Colorado Springs to Fremont County and the Colorado border, working to raise awareness and encourage individuals and families to become foster parents to children in our community. This included working with the LGBTQ community to find welcoming foster placements for children. During the holidays, Ashley organized giving trees and delivered them to businesses so that foster kids could have brighter holidays – and in fact, she was setting up giving trees even last week, canvassing Pueblo and Colorado Springs."
Derrick Rump
As a bartender at Club Q, making people feel comfortable was what Derrick Rump did best.
"I can pretty much be invisible anywhere I go and he wouldn't let me be invisible even if I tried," Rump's friend Anna Oliver said. "He would find me and make sure that I was seen. It was like he saw who I was and wanted to show everyone else."
When she found out about the shooting at her safe space — and found out that the person who made it safe had died there — she was devastated.
"It felt like the world was ending for a while, and it still hurts a lot," she said.
She said her friends will keep Rump's memory alive by sharing remembrances of him with each other. They plan to honor the community he and Daniel Aston helped build at Club Q.
"He brought you in and made you family," she said.
Raymond Green Vance
Vance went to Club Q on the night of the shooting to enjoy a show with his longtime girlfriend, her parents, and her parents' friends for a birthday celebration. It was Vance's first time at Club Q. His family remembers that he was supportive of the LGBTQ+ community.
Vance is remembered as a kind, selfless young man with his entire life ahead of him. His closest friend described him as gifted, one-of-a-kind, and willing to go out of his way to help anyone.
He had just gotten a new job at a Colorado Springs FedEx distribution center and was looking forward to getting his own apartment.
Vance was a 2018 graduate of Sand Creek High School, where his mother described him as a popular, well-liked young man who never got into any trouble and had plenty of friends. He spent most of his spare time with his girlfriend and playing video games, which were his favorite hobby and something he hoped to turn into a career.
"Raymond grew up surrounded by cousins whom he was very close with, and they and the rest of his tight-knit family are still trying to come to terms with the fact he is gone. His absence will leave irreparable heartbreak in countless lives," his family said in a statement.
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