Joshua Thurman, a witness to the Club Q shooting, explains what he saw during the attack

Tiara Latrice Kelley was scheduled to perform at a brunch honoring Transgender Day of Remembrance on Sunday at Club Q in Colorado Springs, so she just barely missed the shootings that clamed five lives and left 18 other people injured.

Kelley did perform Friday night at the club and feels “sick” about the shootings Saturday night. She said she was up all night.

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Her friend, Hysteria, who was deejaying and in the building during the shooting, told her that the shooter came into the bar around 11:57 p.m. Saturday and opened fire.

“She said he walked in and didn’t say anything. He just started shooting,” Kelley said. “She has heard that one of the bartenders was killed.”

“Every time I close my eyes I keep thinking about what I imagine it must have looked like,” said Kelley. “It’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy.”

It was a regular Saturday night at Club Q, said Leia-Jhene Seals, a drag performer who took to the stage along with six other entertainers.

The rock-and-roll-themed show ended about 11:30 p.m., and afterward people were celebrating the birthday of one of the drag queens, Seals said.

The crowd was small that night, about 30 or 35 people, he said, ages 18 and up.

Seals was leaving the club when he heard shots fired just before midnight. A man wearing a mask and a protective vest was shooting at people, killing two bartenders Seals was friends with and three other people who Seals heard were customers.

Seals said he ran to his boyfriend’s car.

“People were panic screaming, running out of the club and surrounding the cars,” he said.

Seals said he felt guilty, not lucky, to be among the survivors. But attending a church service at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday helped give him a sense of hope.

“We’re very united, close-knit even before this,” he said of the Club Q community.

“Colorado Springs isn’t that big on standing up for everyone’s rights,” Seals said. “The stigmas of the LGBT community are always going to be there but give us a chance to tell our side of it.”

A drag artist who identifies as “Del Lusional” on Twitter posted these remarks: 

“I never thought this would happen to me and my bar. I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t stop hearing the shots.

“This doesn’t feel real. Like at all.

“Walking through the bar that I call my home and seeing it … like that …

“I went from being so proud of myself for what I accomplished tonight, to … this. I hate this so much.”

“I feel so sick.”

Joshua Thurman, 34, was at the nightclub Saturday night celebrating his birthday. He heard three to four shots while he was dancing and initially thought it was the music. When he heard more shots, Thurman said he ran to a nearby dressing room where he and other club patrons hid.

He was trapped and heard everything, he said on Facebook. 

“I and another performer and a customer were lying on the floor in the drag queen dressing room on the phone with the police as we heard more shots, people yelling and crying,” Thurman said.

“I saw blood and shattered windows, broken glass. Bodies lying on the floor. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever been through or seen in my life. I feel so numb! How could this happen to our community?”

Thurman said the club was an LGBTQ space “and now we don’t even have that anymore.”

“What are we to do? How do we move on from this?” Thurman asked. “We’re shattered. We’re broken. …”

Thurman said he wants the shooter brought to justice. “It won’t bring anyone back, but the person who did this needs to answer for his crime,” Thurman said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Colorado Springs police initially reported early Sunday that five people had died and 18 were wounded, then changed it to five dead and another 25 wounded. On Monday, a joint operation between police and the city of Colorado Springs corrected the totals to five fatalities, and 17 people sustained gunshot wounds, another person injured in another manner and one victim with no visible injuries but considered a victim, according to city spokesman Max D’Onofrio. The situation was very chaotic on Sunday, D’Onofrio said, which led to the change in numbers. The suspect also was wounded and remains in police custody in a local hospital. He brings the total to 25 people impacted.