Judge warned in 2021 of gay bar attacker's shootout plans

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A judge dismissed the 2021 kidnapping case against the Colorado gay nightclub shooter even though she had previously raised concerns about the defendant stockpiling weapons and explosives and planning a shootout, court transcripts obtained Friday by The Associated Press reveal.

Relatives, including the grandparents who claimed to have been kidnapped, had also told Judge Robin Chittum in August last year about Anderson Aldrich's struggles with mental illness during a hearing at which the judge said Aldrich needed treatment or “it's going to be so bad," according to the documents.

Yet no mention was made during a hearing this July of the suspect's violent behavior or the status of any mental health treatment.

And Chittum, who had received a letter late last year from relatives of Aldrich's grandparents warning the suspect was certain to commit murder if freed, granted a defense attorney's motion to dismiss the case as a trial deadline loomed and the grandparents had stopped cooperating.

The revelation that Chittum regarded the defendant as a potentially serious threat adds to the advance warnings authorities are known to have had about Aldrich's increasingly violent behavior and it raises more questions about whether the recent mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs could have been prevented.

Five people were killed and 17 wounded in the Nov. 19 attack. Aldrich was charged last week with 305 criminal counts, including hate crimes and murder. Aldrich’s public defender has declined to talk about the case, and investigators have not released a motive.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said transcripts of court hearings in the case confirmed his view that "more could have been done to prevent the violence.”

Dershowitz acknowledged...