A shooter who killed five people and injured 17 in a shooting at a LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs in 2022 is now facing federal hate crime charges, multiple outlets reported Tuesday.
People leaves flowers and other items at a memorial near Club Q where a 22-year-old gunman entered ... [+]
The more than 70 new federal charges include 50 hate crime charges and 24 firearm violations, according to multiple reports, and Anderson Lee Aldrich, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, has pleaded not guilty.
Aldrich took a plea deal in a separate murder case, pleading guilty last June to state charges including murder and attempted murder and pleaded no contest to state bias-motivated charges after authorities said they entered Club Q in Colorado Springs and opened fire.
Aldrich was sentenced to five life sentences for the five murder charges and 46 consecutive sentences of 48 years each for the attempted murder counts, ABC News reported.
Aldrich took a pistol and long rifle into Club Q on Nov. 19, 2022 and opened fire, killing five before they were injured in the attack and patrons subdued them. The FBI announced after Aldrich was sentenced in June that it had opened a federal investigation into the shooting, meaning they could face more charges. When the FBI announced the investigation, the district attorney said the possibility of a death penalty that could accompany federal charges was a “big part of what motivated” Aldrich to plead guilty to the state charges they faced. Aldrich spoke to the Associated Press before their sentencing and said they were on “a very large plethora of drugs” and “don’t know” why the shooting happened.
In October, less than a year after the shooting, Club Q announced it would be reopening at a different venue with a new name—The Q. In a statement, the club said: “Both locally and nationally, Club Q’s reopening sends a strong message that hate will not win, love will always prevail.”