Club Q shooting victims seek aid

Survivors in bind as they try to heal

Ashtin Gamblin never realized how expensive it would be to survive a mass shooting.

But after being shot nine times in the attack at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs last November, the bills started piling up for Gamblin. Dozens of other survivors and families of the five people killed have found themselves in a similar bind. They lost paychecks, fell behind on rent, and had to replace clothing seized as evidence (or, in one case, a wedding ring lost by the hospital).

Colorado has raised more than $3 million in donations for people affected by the Club Q shooting and distributed about $2 million, through a nonprofit called the Colorado Healing Fund.

But several survivors say the money has come too slowly, with too much red tape.

Just days before the accused shooter is scheduled to appear in state court, their frustrations burst into public when several survivors held a news conference pleading for the money to be handed out faster.

“This is exhausting,” Gamblin said. She has received payments through the victims fund, but said getting reimbursed had required a series of fights over receipts and questions about whether her expenses were tied to the shooting. “It has been seven months. I have not had time to cope.”

Fund officials say that they have done their best to efficiently distribute funds to cover victims’ urgent needs and financial losses, but they said they also had an obligation to reserve some money for long-term support of victims.

“We’re doing our damnedest to get this right,” said Steven Siegel, a board member of the Colorado Healing Fund.

It is part of a complicated aftermath of one of the deadliest attacks ever against members of the LGBTQ community — a story of tight bonds, but also disagreements over money and questions about how to memorialize the victims, or whether it’s appropriate for Club Q to raise funds by selling rainbow mugs and shirts evoking the shooting. The club’s owner says the money will fund a memorial and better security for when the club reopens.

On Monday, survivors and victims’ families are planning to gather in a Colorado Springs courtroom for a hearing in which they say officials have told them to expect the defendant to plead guilty to multiple counts of first-degree murder and hate crimes.

Several families and survivors, who did not want to be named, said prosecutors had discussed a possible plea agreement for months in private conversations with victims. It has sparked agonizing conversations about what constitutes justice for a defendant charged with killing five people and injuring at least 18 others.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys declined to comment. But several victims said they had been informed of the plea and were preparing statements to make in court Monday.

Some said they had initially wanted a cathartic public trial to detail precisely how and why the shooter had attacked the club, and warning signs that had been missed or disregarded. Other victims did not want to suffer the pain of a drawn-out trial, and were relieved the state’s criminal case was ending.

Federal prosecutors could still pursue federal charges against the shooter, but have not said publicly whether they would.

In an interview with the Associated Press, the accused shooter said, “I have to take responsibility for what happened” — language that struck some survivors as a self-serving evasion.