‘I Felt Like a Fish Trapped in a Barrel’: Club Q Bartender Tells MSNBC About His Harrowing Experiences During Colorado Mass Shooting

Michael Anderson was working as a bartender and karaoke host at Club Q, a Colorado Springs gay bar, when a 22-year-old man opened fire with a long rifle Saturday evening just before midnight. He shared his harrowing experiences with MSNBC reporter Steve Patterson on Sunday.

Five people have died and at least 25 were injured during the shooting. Colorado Springs authorities confirmed that the gunman had been confronted and subdued by two bar patrons, and that he had been taken into custody.

Before the shooting, the atmosphere in Club Q had been “a very fun, energetic, high energy night,” Anderson told the reporter, saying “a great drag show” had wrapped up at 11 pm and “everyone was having a good time.”

“We come here to have community,” Anderson continued, “to have a safe place to gather, to drink together, to cheers together, to have a good night. Last night was that, until it wasn’t.”

Anderson was working behind the bar close to midnight when he heard “a few loud shots go off,” he said. “I didn’t know what it was at first, but I looked up and saw the silhouette or shadow of a guy holding what looked like a rifle, or some sort of long gun.”

He described how “the shots kept going off” as he ducked behind the bar and “glass was flying all around me.”

“At that point, I really got scared for my life,” he said.

Patterson asked him what he had been thinking, if he was trying to make a plan to hide.

Anderson replied that he felt “scared” and “trapped” and “wanted to get out of that building.” He ran to the patio area and hid in a space between a booth and a wall, crouching down on the ground. He was there with a coworker and another woman, and said they were “all just huddled together, just praying that it would end.”

Patterson asked if the gunman came into that room.

At one point, Anderson said, he popped his head up over the booth “and I saw the barrel of a gun, poked into the patio room. I saw just the tip of it, and it was at that point that I legitimately thought I was about to get shot. I didn’t know, I felt like a
fish trapped in a barrel. I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t have my phone, I didn’t have anything. And so I was just so scared that I wouldn’t be able to talk to my mom or anybody.”

He put his head back down for about ten seconds and prayed, he said, and then “it got silent.” The dance music was still “bumping through the club,” but it was “really eerie” because normally that music was accompanied by the sounds of club patrons having a good time, but “it was dead silent in there.”

“And so it was silent for about a minute or two before I chose to get up, and I didn’t want to be trapped there anymore, I needed to do something, I needed to get out of there,” he continued.

He got up and went inside, and saw the shooter “being beat up by those very, very, very brave patrons.”

“Were they on top of him at that point?” asked Patterson.

“They were kicking him, he was lying on the ground, they were kicking him, punching him, yelling at him,” said Anderson. “I don’t know who that was, but I am so grateful. I will be grateful for whoever that is for the rest of my life. Because this could’ve been very different for me.

Watch above via MSNBC.