'Next Mass Killer': Dropped Case Foretold Colorado Bloodbath - AP News
So many conservative families reproducing so much domestic violence, domestic terrorism, and death.
nderson Lee Aldrich loaded bullets into a Glock pistol and chugged vodka, ominously warning frightened grandparents not to stand in the way of an elaborate plan to stockpile guns, ammo, body armor and a homemade bomb to become “the next mass killer.”
“You guys die today and I’m taking you with me,” they quoted Aldrich as saying. “I’m loaded and ready.”
So began a day of terror Aldrich unleashed in June 2021 that, according to sealed law enforcement documents verified by The Associated Press, brought SWAT teams and the bomb squad to a normally quiet Colorado Springs neighborhood, forced the grandparents to flee for their lives and prompted the evacuation of 10 nearby homes to escape a possible bomb blast. It culminated in a standoff that the then-21-year-old livestreamed on Facebook, showing Aldrich in tactical gear inside the mother’s home and threatening officers outside — “If they breach, I’m a f----ing blow it to holy hell!” — before finally surrendering.
But charges against Aldrich for the actions that day were dropped for reasons the district attorney has refused to explain due to the case being sealed and there was no record showing guns were seized under Colorado’s “red flag” law with similarly no explanation from the sheriff. All of it could be one of the most glaring missed warnings in America’s sad litany of mass violence because, just a year and a half later, Aldrich was free to carry out the plan to become “the next mass killer.”
Aldrich’s parents split up soon after their child was born. The father, Aaron Brink, pursued a career as a mixed martial arts fighter and porn actor when he wasn’t doing time for drug convictions or contesting other charges, including battery against Aldrich’s mother.
In an interview after the shooting, Brink told San Diego television station KFMB that he had lost track of Aldrich a decade ago and thought the child had died by suicide, until Aldrich reached out to him by phone last year. Brink said that when he first heard about the shooting, he was troubled the alleged shooter had gone to a gay bar, citing the family’s Mormon religion.
“We don’t do gay,” Brink said, adding that he now regrets having praised his child for violent behavior when younger. “Life is so fragile and it’s valuable. Those people’s lives were valuable.”
Yeah, well f. you.
Con.
Laura Voepel, the mother, has her own history of outbursts and trouble with the law, including an arson count in Texas reduced to a lesser charge. She reportedly was recorded in a July 2022 video in an airport hurling racial epithets at a Hispanic woman who she felt had been taking too long to get her luggage off a plane.
And according to a court record, Voepel was arrested just hours after the Nov. 19 nightclub shooting on resisting arrest and disorderly conduct charges. She had refused to leave the apartment where she lived with Aldrich, according to FBI records obtained by AP. She can be heard crying out for help as she is pulled by officers away from her home on video she asked neighbors to record.
Aldrich’s behavior on June 18, 2021, began, according to the sealed law enforcement documents, after the grandparents called a family meeting in their living room about their plans to sell their home and move to Florida. The grandchild responded with rage, telling them this couldn’t happen because it would interfere with Aldrich’s plans to store materials in the grandparents’ basement to “conduct a mass shooting and bombing.” The grandparents told authorities Aldrich threatened to kill them if they didn’t promise to cancel the move.
The grandparents begged for their lives as Aldrich told them of the plans to “go out in a blaze.” When Aldrich went to the basement, they ran out the door and called 911.
In the end, Aldrich holed up in the mother’s home, threatening to blow up the place as police swarmed and deployed bomb-sniffing dogs. “Come on in boys, let’s f----ing see it!” Aldrich yelled on the Facebook livestream before later surrendering with hands up and tactical gear swapped for a short-sleeved shirt, shorts and bare feet.