https://www.opb.org/article/2022/11/23/colorado-gay-club-shooting-suspect/

In several standard motions filed on behalf of Anderson Lee Aldrich on Tuesday, public defenders refer to the suspect as “Mx. Aldrich," noting in footnotes that Aldrich, 22, is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. The motions deal with issues like unsealing documents and evidence gathering, not Aldrich's identity and there was no elaboration about it.

Real, or cynical ploy to avoid hate crime charges? how does court work, would this be at the discretion of prosecution to challenge, only if they saw fit? :cringe:

changed name before 16

A petition for the name change was submitted on Brink's behalf by their grandparents, who were their legal guardians at the time.

"Minor wishes to protect himself and his future from any connections to birth father and his criminal history. Father has had no contact with minor for several years," said the petition filed in Bexar County, Texas.

The suspect’s father is a mixed martial arts fighter and pornography performer with an extensive criminal history, including convictions for battery against the alleged shooter’s mother, Laura Voepel, both before and after the suspect was born, state and federal court records show. A 2002 misdemeanor battery conviction in California resulted in a protective order that initially barred the father, Aaron F. Brink, from contacting the suspect or Voepel except through an attorney, but was later modified to allow monitored visits with the child.

The father also was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in custody for importation of marijuana and while on supervised release violated his conditions by testing positive for illegal steroids, according to public records. Brink could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Aldrich's request for a name change came months after Aldrich was apparently targeted by online bullying. A website posting from June 2015 that attacked a teen named Nick Brink suggests they may have been bullied in high school. The post included photos similar to ones of the shooting suspect and ridiculed Brink over their weight, lack of money and what it said was an interest in Chinese cartoons.

Additionally, a YouTube account was opened in Brink's name that included an animation titled “Asian homosexual gets molested."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/21/colorado-springs-qbar-shooter/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colorado-springs-mass-shooting-suspect-anderson-lee-aldrich-changed-name-teenager-records/

Clip of the shooter calling self "ya boy" during 2021 standoff with police https://twitter.com/madprofes/status/1594799319814545408

edited

  • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Clip of the shooter calling himself “ya boy” during his 2021 standoff with police https://twitter.com/madprofes/status/1594799319814545408

    Amazin' how anyone else would have been shot during a standoff like this but not ya boy.

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      The only way to always safely interact with cops in the US even if you're armed and wearing body armor is to look like a white 4chan power user. They will immediately recognize you as one of their own instead of firing off 60 rounds because you breathed in a menacing way.

  • amber2 [she/her,they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    It's the most obvious troll: "how can you claim this terrorist isn't non binary, but whenever I purposefully misgender someone I get called a bigot"

    People are saying it all over the internet :/

    • VernetheJules [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Not to mention this will probably the one time right wingers will use the someone's pronouns and actually try to police people on it just so they can twist the knife

      • amber2 [she/her,they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        They finally found a psycho murderer who identifies as an attack helicopter and theyre not gonna shut up about it :/

  • VernetheJules [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Gotta admit I was wondering how these shooters could get more depraved and I think I have my answer

    Up until now there have been shitty trans people (e.g. Blair White) but they've always been authentically trans and it's never been okay to misgender them as an insult.

    Now we have this kid. I can definitely see it now: if people "use" their pronouns, it's going to look like anyone who does is actually sympathizing or giving respect to them. Because as we all know, cis people love to revoke someone's pronouns when a trans person is actually bad, and using someone's pronouns is seen as a sign of respect or tolerance.

    And of course if no one uses his pronouns, will he be misgendered? It's a classic act in bad faith to try and break "the system" to prove it's broken.

    I hope people see through this and realize it's like trying to claim to be Jewish out of the blue when you had just shot up a synagogue a day earlier. But even then, religious questions have had more tests, and this gender stuff is still a mystery and a joke to most people. So I'm not going to hold my breath.

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      And of course if no one uses his pronouns, will he be misgendered?

      Not if we exclusively refer to the murderer as Aldrich the Pig. Gender-neutral language is always an option.

  • FemmeFeminist [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Before I share this hot take, I want to clarify that I support all forms of gender identity and expression and am myself something of a noncommittal nb.

    IMO There’s a particular type of contrarian who, in the face of being rightfully called out for their queer/transphobia, chooses that moment to “come out” as some type of gender identity.

    For example, I’m pretty sure Destiny’s nb declaration coincides with him saying horrible things about trans people and being dismissive of why someone else felt the need to describe themselves as such (don’t quote me on this. My only engagement with that idiot is from the constant spam from his Reddit simps). Suddenly the story was instead about how HE is a enby and therefore has leeway to police other people and say transphobic things about them.

    I think cishets are unaware of the variety of different gender identities and also are way too eager to ascribe a lot of import to anything to do with pronouns. Like, as someone who uses pronouns I mostly use it as a shorthand for other queer identities, but my usage isn’t the same as a binary trans person or even an nb who doesn’t want to be identified with their assigned gender at birth. I don’t get to say that all they/thems don’t need medical gender transition care because I choose not to use it.

    If I choose to be as credulous as the media and assume this person is an nb, that doesn’t preclude them from being a violent genocidal queerphobe. There are even plenty of aggressively stupid queer people who choose to believe what the queerphobic media says about other queer people. The genocidal rhetoric of the media is still at fault for escalation.

    • VernetheJules [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Suddenly the story was instead about how HE is a enby

      Perhaps it's good to reflect on how when Kevin Spacey came out, everyone saw right through that as a way to distract from the SA accusations leveled at him.

      That might be the quickest way to bring people back around.

  • Nakoichi [they/them]M
    ·
    2 years ago

    The suspect’s father is a mixed martial arts fighter and pornography performer with an extensive criminal history

    That is a wild fucking sentence holy shit

    • SaniFlush [any, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      That's awfully close to the biography of James Mitose, founder of Hawaiian Kempo. His second gen student William Chow was the one who made the art legitimate.

      What is it with American martial arts instructors being so reactionary all the time?

  • pooh [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    This is an obvious attempt to dodge a hate crime charge and I’m glad most people here see that.

    • SaniFlush [any, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Complete with using eugenics discourse to dismiss the suffering of poor rural people!

  • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Real, or cynical ploy to avoid hate crime charges? how does court work, would this be at the discretion of prosecution to challenge

    Defense attorneys are absolutely cynical enough to go along with this. They regularly invent far-fetched theories on how their client didn't do something that it's extremely likely they did. They do plenty of great and honest work, and if this was a drug case or some other bullshit "crime" those sorts of tactics would be justified, but there's no real justification for testing ethical boundaries on this piece of shit. Yet I assure you, they will.

    I doubt this will be a big factor at trial, and it could easily come back to bite the defense if the jury calls bullshit, which seems likely. Maybe they're hoping it will be mitigation at sentencing, and maybe this is all from the client and the defense attorney is chickenshit enough to go along.

  • FoolishFool [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    I don't really get why they'd be doing this to avoid a hate crime charge, since they killed and injured several people specifically at a gay bar. They could've picked a million other places, but chose that target: It's fairly obvious to anyone, left or right, why they did it there. And I would think they would probably be proud of it being labeled a hate crime, not try to shy away from it.

    I do think that they're doing this "for the meme" and just to be an asshole, since they know they're probably gonna be in prison for the rest of their life and figure they have nothing to lose by getting in a few more laughs for their fellow chuds to enjoy. (Side note: I don't think non-binary people necessarily divorce themselves from all popular gendered slang, so I don't think the "ya boy" thing is a good example to use)

  • SaniFlush [any, any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Calling Aldritch a rabid dog would be an insult to rabid dogs. Carefully holding them down until the police could capture them alive was far more restraint than I would ask of anyone here.

  • THC
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

  • StewartCopelandsDad [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Nicholas F. Brink became Anderson Lee Aldrich

    Ander son is not a very nonbinary name. It's very convenient for the fascists but I don't see why a non-cishet person can't do a mass shooting though, this is America

        • aaro [they/them, she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Well, because the eurocentric notions of what strings of letters are manly and what strings of letters are for girls is precicely the construct that most non-binary people seek to escape.

            • aaro [they/them, she/her]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Because another construct that doesn't sit right with a lot of the queer community is that names are chosen by one's parents and immutable for life.

              I just want to emphasize for clarity here that the shooter deserves a sentence of death by immersion blender, but allowing the weaponization of transphobic rhetoric is a genuine slippery slope.

              • frankfurt_schoolgirl [she/her]
                ·
                2 years ago

                Don't you think it's transphobic to suggest that non binary people do things like changing their names solely as a political statement, rather than an actual reflection of their gender identity?

                • aaro [they/them, she/her]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  It might look like a political statement for a non-binary person to do a thing that subverts the gender binary. The fact of the matter is that one of the difficulties of being trans is that actions that bring you closer to expressing your true self are viewed as political statements, by, for example, people on the internet in one's own safe communities.