DENVER (AP) — Adriana Vance collected herself in front of the cameras, two years to the day after her son was killed in the mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, a murder that lawsuits allege could have been prevented by law enforcement and the club’s owners. The two lawsuits, formally announced at a press conference Tuesday, target Club Q’s owners for not having enough security, and the El Paso County commissioners and the former sheriff for not using the state’s red flag law after clear warning signs that the shooter intended to commit violence . One of the club’s owners has denied the claims, and El Paso County has declined to comment.
Anderson Aldrich killed five people at the club, including Vance’s 22-year-old son. But the mother couldn’t bring herself to accept her son’s death in the shooting’s wake. “They have someone else’s son, they don’t have my Raymond,” Vance said she told herself, pausing to push down tears.
“My Raymond, he’s going to call.” Then he was lying in the coffin, as if sleeping peacefully. “I saw him.
And I touched him. And I kissed his cold body,” said Vance. “After that day I would wake up in a state of terror, and I still do, just not as much.
” Vance’s remarks at the press conference came after survivors of the shooting detailed the daily consequences they still lived with — the knee-jerk reaction to flee when a balloon pops, the constant pain of three bullets still lodged in a survivo.
