Gunman who killed five people at Colorado LGBTQ+ club receives 55 life sentences after pleading guilty to federal hate crimes

DENVER (AP) — The gunman who killed five people and injured 19 others at an LGBTQ+ club that served as a sanctuary in the conservative city of Colorado Springs pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes charges and was sentenced to 55 life terms in prison Tuesday, but again declined to apologize or say anything to the victims’ families.

Prosecutors nonetheless stressed the importance of forcing Anderson Lee Aldrich to finally take responsibility for the hatred against LGBTQ+ people that they say was the cause of the mass shooting. As part of his plea on Tuesday, Aldrich repeatedly acknowledged that he had evidence of hatred.

“The admission that this was a hate crime is important for the government and it is important for the Club Q community,” said prosecutor Alison Connaughty.

With his attack on Club Q, Aldrich attacked a place that was much more than a bar, Connaughty added.

“It’s a special meeting place for anyone who needs community and that safe place,” she said. “We met people who said, ‘This place saved my life and I was able to feel normal again.'”

Aldrich, 24, is already serving a life sentence after pleading guilty last year to state charges related to the 2022 shooting. Federal prosecutors focused on proving that the attack at Club Q – a haven for LGBTQ+ people in the predominantly conservative city – was premeditated and fueled by prejudice.

U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney, the first openly gay federal judge in Colorado, heard heartbreaking testimony from victims before accepting the settlement, which also includes a total sentence of 190 years on weapons possession and other charges.

“You will never get out of prison,” the judge said.

Aldrich, who appeared in an orange prison uniform with a shaved head and handcuffs, declined to speak at the sentencing. Defense attorney David Kraut made no mention of hate or prejudice in his comments.

Kraut said there was no clear explanation for why Aldrich carried out the shooting, but he cited childhood trauma, a sometimes violent mother, online extremism, drug use and access to guns as factors that “together increased the risk that Anderson would use extreme violence.”

Defense attorneys in the state’s case had rejected hate as a motive, arguing that Aldrich was under the influence of cocaine and drugs at the time. In phone calls with The Associated Press from prison last year, Aldrich did not directly answer questions about whether the attack was motivated by hate, saying only that it was “completely off the mark,” and ultimately pleaded “no contest” to the state’s hate crime charges, which amounts to an admission of guilt.

Connaughty said investigators uncovered evidence of Aldrich’s hatred of the LGBTQ+ community, including two websites created by Aldrich to post hateful content, a target found in the defendant’s home with a rainbow ring embedded with bullets in it, and the defendant’s sharing of recordings of 911 calls related to the 2016 killing of 49 people at the gay-friendly Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Aldrich also investigated other mass shootings, collected weapons, shared the online manifesto of a mass shooter who called transsexuality a “disease” and coordinated a spam email campaign against a former superior who was gay, prosecutors said.

According to additional evidence prosecutors presented to support their sentencing recommendation, Aldrich spent more than $9,000 on gun purchases from at least 56 dealers between September 2020 and the attack on November 19, 2022. A hand-drawn map of Club Q with a marked entrance and exit was found in Aldrich’s apartment, along with a black folder containing training materials titled “Dealing with an Active Shooter.”

Defense attorneys in the state’s case said Aldrich is nonbinary and uses the pronouns “they” and “them.” But some of the victims, as well as the prosecutor who prosecuted Aldrich in state court, rejected that, calling it an attempt to avoid a hate crime charge.

Among them is Ashtin Gamblin, who was working the front door that night and is still in physical therapy after being shot nine times. A true member of the LGBTQ+ community would know about the discrimination and mental health issues they face and would not attack its members in such a sanctuary, she told the hearing.

“We deserve to be safe to go out in public and actually survive being in public,” Gamblin told the judge on Tuesday as her husband stood by her side, placing a supportive hand on her shoulder.

Gamblin’s mother also spoke, describing how her daughter buried her face in a friend’s blood in the hope of not being shot, and was then taken to a hospital in an ambulance shared by the handcuffed killer. Both mother and daughter, as well as other victims, said they would prefer that Aldrich receive the death penalty.

Aldrich visited the club at least eight times before the attack, including an hour and a half before the shooting, prosecutors said. Shortly before midnight, Aldrich returned wearing a tactical vest with ballistic plates and carrying an AR-15-style rifle and immediately began shooting. Aldrich killed the first person in the entryway, shot bartenders and patrons at the bar, then entered the dance floor, where he paused to reload the rifle’s magazine.

“The defendant was able to take them all down,” Connaughty said, adding that Aldrich fired 60 shots in less than a minute. “The defendant emptied the magazine. The defendant was prepared to do the maximum amount of damage in the shortest amount of time possible.”

The shooting was stopped by a Marine officer who grabbed the barrel of the suspect’s rifle, burning his hand, and an Army veteran helped subdue Aldrich until police arrived, authorities said.

There was a chance to prevent such violence: Aldrich was arrested in June 2021. He was accused of threatening his grandparents and vowing to become “the next mass murderer” while stockpiling guns, body armor and bomb-making materials. But Aldrich’s mother and grandparents refused to cooperate, and prosecutors failed to serve subpoenas to family members who could have kept the case alive, so the charges were eventually dropped.

Aldrich, who will be sent back to state prison after the hearing, was convicted at the federal level under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded the federal law in 2009 to include crimes motivated by sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.