COLORADO SPRINGS — Law enforcement officers detailed a chaotic and bloody scene at an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in Colorado Springs last year during a preliminary court hearing on Wednesday for the trial of the person charged with fatally shooting five people and injuring at least 17 others.
On the first day of the hearing, prosecutors laid out evidence to support their case against the suspect, presenting graphic testimony and images from inside the club to a courtroom packed with survivors and family members of victims.
Prosecutors said they found evidence of planning, including a hand-drawn map of the nightclub, Club Q, as well as of hatred that the suspect is alleged to have expressed toward L.G.B.T.Q.
people. Records from the club show that the suspect visited Club Q at least half a dozen times before the night of the shooting, prosecutors said.