Shooter who killed 5 people at Colorado LGBTQ+ club intends to plead guilty to federal hate crimes
DENVER — The shooter who killed five people and endangered the lives of over 40 others at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs plans to plead guilty to new federal charges for hate crimes and firearm violations under an agreement that would allow the defendant to avoid the death penalty, according to court documents made public Tuesday.
Anderson Aldrich, 23, made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to 50 hate crime charges and 24 firearm violations, the documents show. Aldrich would get multiple life sentences in addition to a 190-year sentence under the proposed agreement, which needs a judge’s approval.
The Jan. 9 plea agreement was unsealed by the court after Aldrich had pleaded not guilty in court during an initial appearance on Tuesday afternoon. The gun charges can carry a maximum penalty of death, according to the agreement.
Aldrich was sentenced to life in prison last June after pleading guilty to state charges of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder — one for each person at Club Q during the attack on Nov. 19, 2022.
Word of the new charges and planned agreement come just days after federal prosecutors revealed they would seek the death penalty in another hate crime case — against a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
The decision doesn’t change Attorney General Merrick Garland’s moratorium to halt federal executions, but opens a new chapter in the long and complicated history of the death penalty in the U.S.
Ashtin Gamblin, who was shot nine times and seriously wounded at Club Q, was in court for Tuesday’s hearing. She called the shooting a hate crime and said that Aldrich should be labeled as someone who carried one out.
Gamblin also said she told federal prosecutors Aldrich should face the death penalty for what they did, even if the punishment is never carried out.
She said she wanted Aldrich to “sit with the thought of not knowing when” they would die or that they could die at “any day or any time.”
Aldrich, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, also pleaded no contest to state charges for hate crimes under a plea agreement. The plea was an acknowledgment there was a good chance Aldrich would be convicted of those crimes without admitting guilt. The pleas carried the same weight as a conviction.
