By The newspaper
Jun 19, 2024, 00:26 AM EDT
Anderson Lee Aldrich, the shooter who opened fire at Club Q in Springs, Colorado in 2022, was sentenced to 55 life sentences without parole for hate crimes related to the deaths of five people, in addition to wounding 19. The defendant He refused to apologize or say anything to the victims’ families.
The 24-year-old inmate pleaded guilty to 74 federal charges related to hate crimes and carrying firearms, as part of a plea agreement, according to court documents to which EFE had access.
“The admission that these were hate crimes is important for the government and it is important for the Club Q community,” said prosecutor Alison Connaughty.
Prosecutors did not request the death penalty
Prosecutors chose not to seek the death penalty in the case, and the U.S. Department of Justice announced in January that it had reached a plea deal with Aldrich.
Judge Charlotte Sweeney, the first openly gay federal judge in Colorado, accepted the plea deal and sentenced Aldrich to 55 life sentences without the possibility of parole, followed by a sentence of 190 years in prison, the AP reported.
“This community is much stronger than you”
“You went into the safe space of this community and murdered people en masse,” Judge Sweeney said, adding that it was appropriate to sentence him to life in prison during Pride month, which honors the LGBTQ community.
“This community is much stronger than you, stronger than your armor and stronger than your weapons and surely stronger than your hatred,” the judge told him, according to the local ABC channel.
In addition to the federal charges, the defendant had already been sentenced to more than 2,000 years in state prison in June 2023, after pleading guilty to five counts of first-degree murder and 46 counts of attempted first-degree murder.
He entered the club with a semi-automatic rifle
On November 19, 2022, Anderson Lee Aldrich entered Club Q in Colorado Springs around 10:15 a.m. At midnight he returned with a semi-automatic rifle and a bulletproof vest and opened fire indiscriminately.
Prosecutors said Aldrich spent more than $9,000 on weapons-related purchases from dozens of suppliers between September 2020 and the attack, the AP noted.
A hand-drawn map of Club Q with an entry and exit point marked was found inside the defendant’s apartment, along with a black folder of training material titled “How to Handle an Active Shooter.”
Survivors told harrowing accounts of the shooting and the fear and anguish they have experienced since. Several called for Aldrich’s execution
Defense attorney David Kraut said there was no single explanation for what motivated the mass shooting, but cited childhood trauma, an abusive mother, online extremism, drug use and access to guns as factors that increased the risk that his client would engage in extreme violence.
With information from EFE and AP
Keep reading:
- Suspect in shooting that left 5 dead at Colorado LGBT bar in 2022 is charged with hate crimes
- Club Q shooter in Colorado Springs pleads guilty and faces life in prison
- Colorado Springs nightclub shooter ran neo-Nazi website and identifies as “non-binary”