COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A 911 call placed in 2021 by the grandmother of the Club Q shooting suspect paints a picture of a person so upset about a possible move to Florida that they were determined to hurt others even if they died in the process.
"He's been despondent lately and very upset because we're selling our home," Pamela Pullen told the dispatcher. "He panicked and said he can't leave. And now we know why. He's literally been putting together stuff to make a huge bomb."
Anderson Aldrich, now 22, identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, according to their defense attorneys in the mass shooting case. Aldrich is charged with 305 counts related to the Nov. 19 shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs that killed five people.
More than a year earlier, on June 18, 2021, the grandmother of the suspect called 911 after fleeing her home in the 9800-block of Rubicon Drive which she shared with her husband and the suspect.
"He's angry at the world right now. I don't know why. He is just -- he hates everybody. He hates sheriffs. He's had a really rough life," Pullen said about the suspect.
> Listen to the 911 call below:
She said they had adopted the suspect when they were about 10 and that they suffered from severe PTSD.
"[Aldrich] said he would blow up the entire police department or a federal building. And he wants to go out, he wants to die basically and he wants to go out in a blaze," Pullen said. "He was going to kill us both because he says we're going to go too."
She and her husband were in their car in a parking lot when they called 911 and explained that the suspect had been upset about their planned move to Florida.
"The only reason I was able to get out is because I lied to him and said we won't move to Florida," Pullen told the dispatcher. "And we'll do whatever he wants."
She said the suspect agreed to let them leave after the couple said they needed to pick up their dogs from a boarding facility. The suspect ordered them not to call anyone while they were gone. At one point during the call, the dispatcher asked where the suspect might go if they left their home.
"He'd come looking for us to shoot us. He would. Because he knows now that we're not coming back and we're calling somebody. Otherwise, we would have been home by now," Pullen replied. "I lied to him, which I've never done before. I told him we were coming home and he asked if I called anybody and I said no."
Pullen appeared to be sobbing throughout much of the 17-minute 911 call, during which she said "we can't go home to this" and described the bomb that was in their basement.
"It's a bunch of different things that he's put together," Pullen said. "And I had no idea. He showed it to us a few minutes ago. It's in a huge box."
She went on to say the bomb was about three feet long and about 20 inches high. She told the dispatcher that the suspect had two weapons in the home including an AR-15 rifle and that she was on oxygen and that there were "multiple tanks" of oxygen inside the home.
"My worst fear is that he's going to hurt a lot of people. He told us -- he literally said if you call anybody and they come here I'm going to have a big surprise," Pullen said. "And a lot of people are going to die and it'll be on us. I don't want anybody to be hurt."
SWAT eventually arrested the suspect at a home in the 6300-block of Pilgrimage Road where the suspect's mother lived.
Two guns and bomb-making materials were later seized from the grandparents' home and placed in the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office Evidence Facility. Deputies said they found more than 100 pounds of ammonium nitrate in a tub in the home.
No one was hurt in the 2021 incident, but the suspect was charged with three counts of kidnapping and two counts of menacing. The case, however, was dismissed in July of this year because subpoenas for the victims, which included the suspect's mother and grandparents, could not be served. The case was then sealed. Details about it remained limited until a judge ordered that it be unsealed in the wake of the Club Q shooting.
Five people -- Daniel Aston, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, Derrick Rump, and Raymond Green Vance -- were killed in the shooting.
Seventeen others were injured by gunshots, police said. Five others were injured, but not by gunshots.
Two people are hailed as heroes after taking down the shooter inside the club.
The suspect is charged with 305 counts in the case and is next due in court for a preliminary hearing in February.
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