Club Q:  LGBTQ+ Nightclub Where Five Killed In Mass Shooting Set To Reopen

LGBTQ+nightclub in Colorado Springs, U.S.A. where five people were killed in a mass shooting in November announced this week that it will reopen by the fall, according to ‘The New York Times’.

Club Q has been closed since a person wearing body armour and armed with an AR-15-style rifle walked in during a drag show just before midnight on Nov. 19, a Saturday night, and moved through the space as he opened fire.

In just a few minutes, five people were killed and more than a dozen others were injured before club patrons were able to subdue him.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Matthew Haynes, the founding owner of Club Q, said in a statement on Monday that members of the venue’s staff “are working very hard to bring our home back.”

“It has been two decades now that we have kept the doors open as a place where everyone, regardless of gender identity or who they love, had somewhere to belong,” he said in the statement, which was posted to the Club Q Instagram account. “We look forward to being able to gather as one community again,” he added.

The club’s interior will be gutted and redesigned, the statement said. And there will be “enhanced security measures,” including new screening technology and a “hardened” structure.

The redesigned club will also feature a “permanent standing tribute” to the five victims of the mass shooting: Kelly Loving, Daniel Aston, Derrick Rump, Ashley Paugh and Raymond Green Vance.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, faces more than 300 criminal counts, including 10 counts of first-degree murder and 86 counts of attempted murder. Prosecutors have suggested that the suspect harboured antipathy for the LGBTQ+ community.

The announcement that Club Q would reopen was notable because the sites of mass shootings are often permanently closed or demolished.

An interim memorial now stands at the former location of Pulse, a queer nightclub in Orlando, Fla., where a gunman who proclaimed allegiance to the Islamic State killed 49 people and wounded dozens of others in 2016. The onePULSE Foundation, a nonprofit group that is planning a $45-million National Pulse Memorial and Museum at the site, said on Tuesday that there were no plans to reopen the nightclub.

In Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the school building was razed and rebuilt on a different part of the same property. At Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., the library where most of the 13 victims were killed during a shooting rampage in 1999 was closed and replaced with a new one.

Read related myGwork articles here:

Remember Them: The 5 Victims Of The Colorado Club Q Shooting

President Biden Sends Letter To Club Q

Five Killed At LGBTQ+ Nightclub In Colorado Springs

Keep up to date with the latest myGnews

Sign up to myGwork

________

LGBTQ+ professionals, LGBTQ+ Graduates, LGBTQ+ professional network, LGBTQ+ professional events, LGBTQ+ networking events, LGBTQ+ Recruitment, LGBTQ+ Friendly organizations, LGBTQ+ Friendly companies, LGBTQ+ jobs