The shooter convicted of killing five people at a Colorado Springs L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in 2022 pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal hate crime and firearm violations. Under the agreement, federal prosecutors did not seek the death penalty for Anderson Lee Aldrich, 24, who is nonbinary and uses the pronouns they/them.
The Justice Department had announced a plea agreement with Mx. Aldrich in January, which included life in prison without the possibility of parole plus a consecutive sentence of 190 years in prison.
In federal court in Denver, U.S. District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney listened to testimony from more than a dozen surviving victims of the shooting and loved ones of people who were killed before accepting the plea and issuing the sentence.
Judge Sweeney, who became Colorado’s first openly gay federal judge when she was confirmed several months before the shooting, addressed Mx. Aldrich directly as she accepted the plea.
“I hope what you’ve learned today: This community is much stronger than you,” Judge Sweeney said. “This community is stronger than your armor, stronger than your weapons, and it’s sure as heck stronger than your hatred.”
Last year, Mx. Aldrich pleaded guilty to dozens of state charges of murder and attempted murder, but pleaded no contest to hate crimes charges. At the hearing on Tuesday, prosecutors said the plea agreement would change that.
“This plea requires an admission of guilt, that these were hate crimes,” said Assistant U.S. attorney Alison M. Connaughty.
Just a few days before announcing the plea agreement with Mx. Aldrich, federal prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty for the 20-year-old man who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo in 2022. Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black worshipers at a church in Charleston in 2015, was the first person in the United States sentenced to death for a federal hate crime.
The Justice Department did not seek the death penalty against the man who killed 23 people during an attack targeting Hispanic people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019.
As victims of the shooting and people who lost loved ones testified, some of them asked Judge Sweeney to consider the death penalty.
“You need to pay with your life,” said Cheryl Norton, whose daughter Ashtin Gamblin was wounded in the shooting, speaking to Mx. Aldrich.
“I beg you, judge, please kill him,” said a man whose son was wounded in the shooting.
Judge Sweeney said the death penalty was not an option since prosecutors had not sought it, and imposing it would require a jury.
Ms. Connaughty described Club Q as a place where L.G.B.T.Q. people felt safe. On the day of the shooting, Nov. 19, 2022, the club hosted a drag show celebrating Transgender Day of Remembrance. Mx. Aldrich entered the club with an assault weapon and fired at the crowd until patrons, including a U.S. Army veteran, tackled the shooter and ended the attack.
Mx. Aldrich had shattered that sense of safety, the prosecutor said.
Ms. Connaughty described the shooting as premeditated, and said Mx. Aldrich had tried to livestream the shooting with an iPhone taped to their hat. She added that in online communications Mx. Aldrich had used anti-L.G.B.T.Q. slurs and shared 911 recordings from the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, where 49 people were killed in 2016.
The five people killed in the shooting ranged in age from 22 to 40 years old. More than 20 others were injured.
Mx. Aldrich’s attorney, David Kraut, described Mx. Aldrich as a person who endured “more than their fair share” of trauma. Drugs, online extremism and the availability of guns were risk factors in their crime, but did not explain or excuse it, Mr. Kraut said.
“As trauma compounded, Anderson’s world grew smaller and smaller,” Mr. Kraut said in court, “until finally they were living in a bedroom not much larger than a prison cell, enduring depression, hiding from an unstable and at times abusive mother, and desperately escaping through drugs, alcohol and a world online.”
Mx. Aldrich said they did not want to speak during the hearing.
Survivors of the shooting who spoke at the hearing said that Club Q, which opened more than 20 years ago, had been a refuge for the Colorado Springs L.G.B.T.Q. community. Some described battling grief and guilt after watching their friends die.
One regular who was wounded that night spoke about victims Derrick Rump and Daniel Aston, two bartenders who he said knew how to pour his drinks “a little weaker than usual, so I could stay out later and spend time with my loved ones.”
The post Colorado L.G.B.T.Q. Club Shooter Pleads Guilty to Federal Hate Crimes appeared first on New York Times.