(WXYZ) — There's a great deal of sadness and anger within metro Detroit's LGBTQ community following the attack on a LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs Saturday night.
According to police, five people were killed and 25 others were injured. The Associated Press said police identified the gunman as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich.
He was taken to an area hospital with undisclosed injuries.
RELATED: Police: 5 dead, 25 hurt in Colorado LGBTQ nightclub shooting
"I am tired every day having to pick up the newspaper or have a phone call come into our center of people that want to hurt us," David Garcia, the executive director of Affirmations, an LGBTQ+ community center in Ferndale said.
"I think about the families who woke up this morning to lost ones. You go to a nightclub, Sunday morning one of your loved ones is gone. I mean, how horrible is that," A. Nzere Kwabena of LGBT Detroit adds.
The shooting in Colorado was a trigger for the two LGBT community leaders. The one shooting that immediately came to mind for both Kwabena and Garcia was the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando. Pulse, like Club Q was also a gay nightclub.
"Just last week, someone called in and said they were friends of the Parkland shooter and they were on their way to Affirmations," Garcia said.
Garcia says they've had the FBI in to help them train for active shooter training because of threats like this. Both he and Kwabena agree that the violent rhetoric and hate needs to stop.
"My hope is that people find a way to manage their hate to hopefully find someone they could talk to, seek professional help," Kwabena said.
"We are going to continue to do everything we can to try and keep our community safe. But that's everybody's job," Garcia adds.
Police in Colorado Springs are still investigating whether or not this shooting was a hate crime.
