Colorado shooting highlights city's conflicted past

SHOTLIST:RESTRICTION SUMMARY: NONE++MUSIC CLEARED FOR EDITORIAL USE++ASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 23 November 20221. Aerial of downtown Colorado Springs with Rocky Mountains in background2. Cars drive on street downtownASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 22 November 20223. Statue in roundabout of Civil War Union General William Jackson PalmerASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 23 November 20224. SOUNDBITE (English) Matt Mayberry, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum:++PARTIALLY COVERED++"Colorado Springs is a place that reinvents itself often. I have been thinking for years that we're in the middle of a transition about what Colorado Springs is and who we are going to become."5. Airplane on display at U.S. Air Force Academy6. SOUNDBITE (English) Matt Mayberry, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum: ++COVERED++"We have been heavily influenced by the military. We also lean very conservative. And so Colorado Springs has gone through a lot of different political eras."7. "Focus on the Family" signage near street corner8. Statue of a man, woman, and child in front of Focus on the Family visitor's center9. Dense houses on hill with church steeple tucked among them10. SOUNDBITE (English) Matt Mayberry, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum:++COVERED++"Gay, lesbian, transgender people have always been in Colorado Springs. I think the visibility, the awareness, the discussion of LGBT issues is different today than it has been in the past. It is much more open."ASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 22 November 202211. Pedestrians walk past LGBTQ+ flag in coffee shop12. Photos of three of the 5 people killed in Club Q shootingASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 23 November 202213. SOUNDBITE (English) Matt Mayberry, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum: ++COVERED++"Tragedy, economic depressions, business change, all of those stress points in history are what have helped build Colorado Springs over time." ASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 22 November 202214. Various of people gathering in front of makeshift memorial for victims killed in Club Q shootingASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 23 November 202215. Person speaking at event where rainbow flag is unfurled at City Hall16. People clapping17. Couple embracing18. SOUNDBITE (English) Matt Mayberry, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum:++PARTIALLY COVERED++"I think we may look back in the future and see this as a moment of transition for Colorado Springs."19. Rainbow flag being unfurled at City Hall, UPSOUND (English) "Love beats hate, love lives."20. Colorado State Representative Leslie Herod speaking at eventUPSOUND: I want to thank all the lesbians out here who have fought for generations21. SOUNDBITE (English) Leslie Herod, Colorado State Representative: ++ PARTIALLY COVERED++"I'm from Colorado Springs. I love Colorado Springs. I did not come out here. I came out in Boulder. But when I came back to the Springs, I found community at places just like Club Q."22. Nic Grzecka, one of the owners of Club Q speaking at eventUPSOUND: Our space may have been taken this last week, but our community cannot be.23. People listening at event holding signs that read (English):"trans people belong here!"24. Wide of crowd at event25. SOUNDBITE (English) Leslie Herod, Colorado State Representative:++PARTIALLY COVERED++"Today, as I stood here and I saw the flag being flown in front of this building that represented hate to me, represented a place of no entry for LGBTQ people. I was moved."ASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 22 November 202226. Various of investigators on site of club shooting27. SOUNDBITE (English) Leslie Herod, Colorado State Representative:++PARTIALLY COVERED++"I think a lot of people, including myself, might have ascribed to the notion that we were going to age out of hate, of transphobia, of racism, of you know, of homophobia. We're not going to just age out of it. It's not going to just go away. In fact, it's being bred in our communities and it's been lifted up. So we have to actively change that. We have to actively teach a new narrative. We have to actively embrace people who are different than us or those who are just like us and see us for who we are completely. Colorado Springs should lead that now."ASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 22 November 202228. Various of people mourning at makeshift memorial near Club Q29. "Coexist" flag behind police tape near memorialASSOCIATED PRESS Colorado Springs, Colorado – 23 November 202230. Aerial of crowd gathered at City Hall with rainbow flag31. Detail of solemn faces at event32. Person raising fist at event, with rainbow flag draped over them33. Wide of crowd at event, looking up at rainbow flag draped at City HallSTORYLINE: When officials unfurled a 25-foot rainbow flag in front of Colorado Springs City Hall this week, people gathered to mourn the victims of a mass shooting at a popular gay club help but reflect on how such a display of support would have been unthinkable just days earlier.With a growing and diversifying population, the city nestled at the foothills of the Rockies is a patchwork of disparate social and cultural fabrics. It's a place full of art shops and breweries; megachurches and military bases; a liberal arts college and the Air Force Academy. For years it's marketed itself as an outdoorsy boomtown with a population set to top Denver's by 2050.But last weekend's shooting has raised uneasy questions about the lasting legacy of cultural conflicts that caught fire decades ago and gave Colorado Springs a reputation as a cauldron of religion-infused conservatism, where LGBTQ people didn't fit in with the most vocal community leaders' idea of family values.For some, merely seeing police being careful to refer to the victims using their correct pronouns this week signaled a seismic change. For others, the shocking act of violence in a space considered an LGBTQ refuge shattered a sense of optimism pervading everywhere from the city's revitalized downtown to the sprawling subdivisions on its outskirts.In recent decades the population has almost doubled to 480,000 people. More than one-third of residents are nonwhite — twice as many as in 1980. The median age is 35. Politics here lean more conservative than in comparable-size cities. City council debates revolve around issues familiar throughout the Mountain West, such as water, housing and the threat of wildfires.Residents take pride in describing Colorado Springs as a place defined by reinvention. In the early 20th century, newcomers sought to establish a resort town in the shadow of Pikes Peak. In the 1940s, military bases arrived. In the 1990s it became known as a home base for evangelical nonprofits and Christian ministries including the broadcast ministry Focus on the Family and the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys. "Colorado Springs is a place that reinvents itself often. I have been thinking for years that we're in the middle of a transition about what Colorado Springs is and who we are going to become," said Matt Mayberry, a historian who directs the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.Leslie Herod grew up in Colorado Springs in a military family — like many others in the city — she left to study at the University of Colorado in the liberal city of Boulder. In 2016 she became the first openly LGBTQ and Black person elected to Colorado's General Assembly, representing part of Denver. She is now running to become Denver's mayor."I'm from Colorado Springs. I love Colorado Springs," Herod said. But, she chose not to come out there, rather waiting until she moved to more progressive Boulder for college. At a memorial event downtown, Herod said she didn't feel supported as a queer person or Black person in Colorado Springs, instead taking her political career to Denver.She said she found community at Club Q when she would come back from college, but that sense of belonging didn't allow her to forget that people and groups with a history of anti-LGBTQ stances and rhetoric maintained influence in city politics.Herod and others who have been around long enough are remembering this week how in the 1990s, at the height of the religious right's influence, the Colorado Springs-based group Colorado for Family Values spearheaded a statewide push to pass Amendment 2 and make it illegal for communities to pass ordinances protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination.Colorado Springs voted 3 to 1 in favor of Amendment 2, helping make its narrow statewide victory possible. Though it was later ruled unconstitutional, the campaign cemented the city's reputation, drawing more like-minded groups and galvanizing progressive activists in response.The influx of evangelical groups decades ago was at least in part spurred by efforts from the city's economic development arm to offer financial incentives to lure nonprofits. Newcomers began lobbying for policies like getting rid of school Halloween celebrations due to suspicions about the holiday's pagan origins.There has been a concerted push to shed the city's reputation as "Jesus Springs" and remake it yet again, highlighting its elite Olympic Training Center and branding itself as Olympic City USA.The memorials this week attracted a wave of visitors: crowds of mourners clutching flowers, throngs of television crews and also a church group whose volunteers set up a tent and passed out cookies, coffee and water. To some in the LGBTQ community, the scene was less about solidarity and more a cause for consternation.While Herod said she was moved to see the rainbow flag unfurled over City Hall, she is aware that hate isn't something a community ages out of."It's not going to just go away. In fact, it's being bred in our communities and it's been lifted up," she said. "We have to actively teach a new narrative. We have to actively embrace people who are different than us or those who are just like us and see us for who we are completely. Colorado Springs should lead that now."----AP Video shot Brittany PetersonProduction: Brittany Peterson===========================================================Clients are reminded: (i) to check the terms of their licence agreements for use of content outside news programming and that further advice and assistance can be obtained from the AP Archive on: Tel +44 (0) 20 7482 7482 Email: info@aparchive.com(ii) they should check with the applicable collecting society in their Territory regarding the clearance of any sound recording or performance included within the AP Television News service (iii) they have editorial responsibility for the use of all and any content included within the AP Television News service and for libel, privacy, compliance and third party rights applicable to their Territory.