Club Q shooter faces federal hate-crimes charges, possibility of death penalty

The shooter in the 2022 attack on Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colo., has been charged under federal law with hate crimes, something that could bring the death penalty.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 23, is already serving a sentence of life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to state-level charges. Five people were killed and numerous others injured in the shooting at the LGBTQ+ nightclub November 19, 2022. Last June, Aldrich pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder and 46 counts of attempted first-degree murder — the total reflecting the number of people in the club — and pleaded no contest to state-level hate-crimes charges.

The federal charges were announced Tuesday in Denver, and Aldrich pleaded not guilty to them, the Associated Press reports. They consist of 50 hate-crimes charges and 24 weapons charges — Aldrich used a semiautomatic rifle in the attack. The charges came after an FBI investigation.

Aldrich identifies as nonbinary, but prosecutors have expressed skepticism about that. District Attorney Michael Allen said he believed Aldrich claimed the identity to avoid being charged with hate crimes under Colorado law. There was no indication Aldrich identified as nonbinary before the shooting, Allen added.

Aldrich’s plea of no contest to the state-level hate-crimes charges resulted from a plea agreement. “The plea was an acknowledgment there was a good chance Aldrich would be convicted of those crimes without admitting guilt,” the AP reports. “The pleas carried the same weight as a conviction.” The possibility of a death sentence for federal hate-crimes charges was a motivation for the no-contest plea to the state charges, Allen said during the trial, according to the AP.

Aldrich has claimed to have been under the influence of drugs at the time of the shooting and denied that hate or bias were motivating factors. Witnesses at the trial, however, said Aldrich expressed hatred for LGBTQ+ people and other groups.

Over a year before the Club Q shooting, Aldrich had been charged with threatening their grandparents, but those charges were dropped due to lack of cooperation by the grandparents and Aldrich’s mother.

Those killed in the Club Q attack were Raymond Green Vance, 22, Daniel Aston, 28, Ashley Paugh, 35, Derrick Rump, 38, and Kelly Loving, 40. They were memorialized at a November event marking the one-year anniversary of the crime. Club Q has closed and never reopened. It was a rare safe space for LGBTQ+ people in largely conservative Colorado Springs, but some other nightclubs have become refuges for the community.

Aldrich was moved to the Wyoming State Penitentiary last year due to concerns about their safety in Colorado's prison system, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections.