Club Q bartender recalls terror of being ‘trapped’ in Colorado nightclub shooting

A bartender at Club Q, the Colorado Springs gay nightclub where a mass shooter killed five and injured 25 over the weekend, said he felt ‘like a fish trapped in a barrel’ when he saw the gun.

Michael Anderson said in a moving interview with MSNBC that Saturday had been fun and full of energy until gunshots rang out and he spotted a gun barrel entering the patio room where he was hiding.

“I only saw the tip of it and that’s when I legitimately thought I was about to get shot,” Anderson said. ” I did not know. I felt like a fish trapped in a barrel.

He continued, “I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t have my phone, I didn’t have anything, and I was so scared that I wouldn’t be able to talk to my mom or anyone.

Anderson was not injured in the shooting. Two fellow bartenders were killed, including Daniel Davis Aston, a transgender man, and Derrick Rump, the bar’s co-owner, according to The Gazette, the Colorado Springs newspaper.

El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen said investigators have yet to decide whether to prosecute the shooting as a hate crime.

Anderson described the terrifying moment he spotted the shooter’s “shape or shadow” and heard gunshots. The glass flew “all around,” he said, and he ran to the patio and hid.

He said he snuggled up with a colleague and another woman, praying for the shooting to stop, when he saw the gun barrel.

“About ten seconds later he went quiet,” he said.

Police said at least two people in the bar “confronted and fought” the killer, preventing further bloodshed.

“We owe them a great debt of thanks,” Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said Sunday.

Watch a clip from Anderson’s interview with MSNBC below.