John Jefferson
Background: This image provided by state prosecutors shows surveillance video of Club Q shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich firing a weapon in the Colorado Springs, Colo., venue on Nov. 19, 2022. (4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office via AP)/ Inset: Mass shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich appears in two booking photos provided by the Colorado Springs Police Department.
A federal judge in Colorado has ordered that Anderson Lee Aldrich, the man who strolled into a LGBTQ+ nightclub in 2022 and opened fire with an AR-15 rifle, killing 5 people and injuring 19, will spend the rest of his life in prison plus 190 years more.
Aldrich, 24, will have no chance at parole. Per a statement from the U.S. Justice Department, Aldrich was sentenced to 55 concurrent sentences to run consecutively to 190 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 74 federal hate crimes and firearms charges for the November 19, 2022 shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs.
Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty after reaching a plea agreement with Aldrich earlier this year. As a part of that plea, he admitted that the shooting was inspired, in part, by his hatred of the LGBTQ+ community.
FBI director Christopher Wray said Tuesday the Club Q shooting was one of the most violent crimes against the gay community in the nation’s history. The slain victims were bartender Daniel Davis Aston, 28; customer Kelly Loving, 40; bartender and bar co-owner Derrick Rump, 38, customer Ashley Paugh, 35; and customer Raymond Greene Vance, 22.
Noah Reich, left, and David Maldonado, the Los Angeles co-founders of Classroom of Compassion, put up a memorial with photographs of the five victims of a weekend mass shooting at a nearby gay nightclub on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022, in Colorado Springs, Colo. AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
Before Aldrich learned his fate on Tuesday, Cheryl Norton, the mother of a woman who survived the attack — but only after being shot nine times — begged presiding U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney to show Aldrich no mercy, according to the Washington Post.
“Please, your honor, I’m pleading with you. Lock this animal away to the depths of hell,” Norton said.
Aldrich is already serving five back to back life sentences without parole for state murder charges tied to the Club Q shooting. He pleaded guilty to the state charges in June 2023, admitting to five counts of first-degree murder and no less than 46 counts of attempted first-degree murder. He also entered a no contest plea on two counts of bias and motivated crimes. Colorado Judge Michael McHenry sentenced Aldrich to 2,208 additional years for the attempted murder charges, per CNN.
“I intentionally and after deliberation caused the death of each victim,” Aldrich said last June in state court when entering his plea, according to USA Today.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Sweeney — who is the first openly gay federal judge in the Mile High State — zeroed in on Aldrich before delivering her sentence.
“You targeted this community where it lives and breathes. This community is stronger than your armor, than your weapons, and it’s sure as heck stronger than your hatred,” Sweeney, who was appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, said.
Some of the family members or friends of the victims delivered impact statements in court. Some told Aldrich, who says he identifies as non-binary, that they would never forgive him. Others said they would, including Wyatt Kent, a drag queen who was performing at Club Q when Aldrich came in and started shooting.
“I forgive you. We, the queer community, we are the resilient ones. We continue to hold that beauty within each other. We continue to find joy in the trauma and pain. Unfortunately, those are things you will never experience for the rest of your life,” Kent said, according to CNN.
Kent’s partner, Aston, was killed in the shooting.
Kebrina Chirdon lights candles at a memorial outside of Club Q on Nov. 25, 2022, in Colorado Springs, Colo. Parker Seibold/The Gazette via AP, File
As Law&Crime previously reported, Aldrich arrived at Club Q close to midnight on Nov. 19, 2022, got out of his Toyota Highlander and headed for the club’s main entrance. He wore a ballistic vest and carried an AR-15 style assault rifle.
He walked a “short distance” once inside and “opened fire indiscriminately at patrons inside of the club.”
The bloody chaos that ensued was stopped only thanks to patrons at the club who subdued Aldrich including Army veteran Richard Fierro who grabbed the barrel of Aldrich’s gun and then hit him with it.
When Aldrich was sentenced in state court last year, USA Today reported that Fierro said he wanted people to know that “his evil was stopped by a person of color, by LGBTQ folks, by a transgender woman, by actual combat veterans, real heroes.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
Read the full article here