Colorado Club Q gunman who killed 5 at nightclub to plead guilty to federal hate crimes
Anderson Lee Aldrich, who is serving a life sentence for shooting five dead and injuring 19 others at an LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs in 2022, pleaded guilty Tuesday to additional hate crime and gun charges following new evidence of anti-gay slurs and weapon purchases.
He refused to apologize or say anything to the victim's families in court, The Associated Press reported.
Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and prefers to be described using they/them pronouns, pleaded guilty to 50 federal hate crimes and gun charges to avoid the death penalty per a deal between defense attorneys and prosecutors.
Instead, prosecutors are recommending that Aldrich be handed life sentences for each hate crime, in addition to a 190-year sentence for the gun charges, per the outlet.
As part of the deal, Aldrich admitted to evidence of hatred on Tuesday.
"The admission that these were hate crimes is important to the government, and it’s important to the community of Club Q," said prosecutor Alison Connaughty, per the AP.
Club Q was "a special gathering place for anyone who needed community and anyone who needed that safe place," Connaughty said on Tuesday, adding that the prosecution had "met people who said 'this venue saved my life and I was able to feel normal again.'"
Now U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney, the first openly gay federal judge in Colorado, will decide whether to accept the sentencing deal.
While Aldrich did not speak, his attorney David Kraut said there was no singular reason why his client carried out the shooting. Childhood trauma, a sometimes abusive mother, online extremism, drug use and access to guns were factors that "combined to increase the risk that Anderson would engage in extreme violence," Kraut said Tuesday.
Aldrich, 24, pleaded guilty last year to five counts of first-degree murder, 46 counts of second-degree murder and hate crime charges in a Colorado court for the shooting at Club Q in November 2022, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Now, federal prosecutors have made a case that Aldrich's attack on the LGBTQ+ club was premeditated and fueled by bias.
Aldrich coordinated a spam email campaign against a former work supervisor who is gay, prosecutors wrote in recent court filings reviewed by the AP. They also accused Aldrich of disseminating another person's racist and antisemitic manifesto that asserted that being transgender is a mental illness.
Aldrich had a target with a rainbow ring that had been shot with bullets, prosecutors said, and he had shared recordings of 911 calls from the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, which claimed the lives of 49 people in 2016.
New evidence allegedly shows Aldrich spent over $9,000 on weapons and their accessories from at least 56 vendors between September 2020 and the 2022 attack, prosecutors claim.
Investigators found a hand-drawn map of the LGBTQ+ club with marked entry and exit points in Aldrich's apartment, prosecutors said, along with a black binder of training material labeled "How to handle an active shooter."
Defense attorneys for Aldrich, who was referred to as "Mx. Aldrich" in state court proceedings, claim that their client was impaired by cocaine and medication at the time of the attack.
Some of the shooting victims and the district attorney who prosecuted Aldrich in state court reject the claim that Aldrich is nonbinary, calling it an effort to avoid hate crime charges, per the AP.
Ashtin Gamblin, who was working the front door at the club and is still undergoing physical therapy after she was shot nine times, told the outlet that a true member of the LGBTQ+ community wouldn't attack its members in a safe haven.
"To come into the one safe place to do that, you’re not part of the community. You just wanted the community gone," said Gamblin, who is among victims expected to give impact statements before Aldrich's sentencing.
Although Aldrich identifies as nonbinary, someone who is a member of a protected group, such as a member of the LGBTQ community, can still be charged with a hate crime for targeting peers. Hate crime laws are focused on the victims, not the perpetrator.
Aldrich visited the club at least eight times before the attack, prosecutors said, and stopped by an hour and a half before returning to open fire on patrons.
Just before midnight on Nov. 19, 2022, Aldrich returned wearing a tactical vest with ballistic plates and brandishing an AR-15 rifle. The gunman killed the first person in the entryway of the club, then shot at bartenders and bar patrons before turning to the dance floor, pausing to reload the magazine of the rifle.
A Navy officer burned his hand grabbing Aldrich's weapon, and an Army veteran subdued the shooter until police arrived, Fox News Digital previously reported.
SHOOTING SUSPECT OF COLORADO GAY NIGHTCLUB ATTACK EXPECTED TO TAKE PLEA DEAL
Aldrich vowed to become "the next mass killer" in a vodka-fueled, threatening rant when their grandparents confronted them about stockpiling weapons and bomb-making materials. But Aldrich's family failed to cooperate after the arrest, and prosecutors failed to serve subpoenas to family members, so the charges were ultimately dismissed.
A felony conviction in that case would have prevented Aldrich from buying more firearms legally. But District Attorney Michael Allen said most of the weapons used in the nightclub attack were fabricated from untraceable ghost gun components that do not require a background check to procure.
Two guns seized from the scene of the 2021 incident had not been returned to Aldrich at the time of the Club Q shooting, the Associated Press reported.
Aldrich will be returned to state prison after the hearing, and is being sentenced federally under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was expanded to include crimes motivated by gender identity, sexual orientation and disability in 2009.
Gamblin told The Associated Press that she wanted Aldrich to be sentenced to death in light of how many victims' lives have been irreparably altered. Some friends no longer want to go out to events, she said, while others have struggled to keep jobs that involve working with the public.
"We want nothing more to go back to normal, but we know it’s not going to happen," she told AP.