More information is coming out of Colorado Springs after a gunman killed five people and injured 25 more, according to a news release.
Witnesses described a clubgoer confronting and stopping the gunman. The clubgoer allegedly struck the assailant, who was also carrying a rifle and wearing body armor, with his own handgun.
The man who subdued the shooter has been identified as U.S. Army veteran Rich Fierro who served several tours of duty and reportedly received multiple bronze stars.
“I wasn’t thinking,” Fierro explained. “I Just ran over there, got him … I just kept whaling on him, and I told the dude in front of me, kick him in his head.”
“He saved dozens and dozens of lives,” one of the club’s owners, Matthew Haynes, said at a Sunday vigil for the victims, according to The New York Times.
“Stopped the man cold. Everyone else was running away, and he ran toward him,” Haynes continued.
Haynes also told reporters that another individual was seen helping subdue the gunman.
Mayor John Suthers of Colorado Springs said the attack appears to have been a hate crime and spoke of the “tragic darkness” that descended on the community as a whole.
“The actions of this single individual, whatever his motivations, don’t reflect the city of Colorado Springs,” Suthers told ABC’s Good Morning America.
“It has the trappings of a hate crime,” he continued, “but we are going to have to see what the investigation shows in terms of social media and things like that, to make a clear determination exactly what the motive was.”
A Facebook post from the mayor’s office praised the people who helped prevent what could have been an even bigger tragedy.
“We know one or more patrons heroically intervened to subdue the suspect, and we praise those individuals who did so because their actions saved lives,” the post read.
“We are a strong community that has shown resilience in the face of hate and violence in the past, and we will do that again,” the post continued.
The alleged shooter, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, remained in custody at a local hospital as of Monday.
Aldrich will face five murder charges, and five additional counts of causing injury with “bias motivation,” according to court records released on Monday.
Although police have not yet confirmed the identities of the victims, the names of some of the victims have been made public by their family and friends.
Of the five victims that were killed, two of them were bartenders.
Derrick Rump, a Colorado College graduate who was originally from Berks County, Pennsylvania, was one of two bartenders killed in the shooting, CBS News confirmed.
His friend, Anthony Jaramillo, told CBS Philadelphia that Rump was “loving, supportive, with a heavy hand in his drink pouring, and just a really good listener.”
The second bartender, Daniel Aston, was also killed, CBS News confirmed.
Aston, a 28-year-old from Tulsa, had moved to Colorado Springs two years ago and worked as an entertainer at the nightclub in addition to bartending, according to the Associated Press.