The maniac who killed five people and injured 19 others with a AR-15 style rifle at a nightclub in Colorado Springs has pleaded guilty to 50 federal hate crime charges.
Anderson Lee Aldrich, now 24, is already serving life in prison after admitting state charges over the 2022 shooting.
On Tuesday, Aldrich entered the pleas under a deal with prosecutors that allows him to avoid the death penalty.
Federal prosecutors have focused on proving that the attack at Club Q — a sanctuary for LGBTQ+ people in the mostly conservative city — was premeditated and fuelled by bias.
Aldrich will instead be sentenced to more multiple life sentences for the hate crimes plus a total of 190 years on gun charges and other counts.
His defence attorneys in the state case said their client is non-binary and uses “they/them” pronouns, arguing Aldrich was under the influence of cocaine and medication at the time.
In phone calls from jail with The Associated Press last year, Aldrich didn’t answer directly when asked whether the attack was motivated by hate, saying only, that’s “completely off base,” and did not reveal a motive.
Prosecutor Alison Connaughty said: “The admission that these were hate crimes is important to the government, and it’s important to the community of Club Q.”
Club Q was more than just a bar, Connaughty said.
“It’s a special gathering place for anyone who needed community and anyone who needed that safe place,” she said.
“We met people who said ‘this venue saved my life and I was able to feel normal again’.”
Aldrich’s lawyer David Kraut said there’s no singular explanation for why the shooter carried out the massacre.
He blamed childhood trauma, a sometimes abusive mother, online extremism, drug use and access to guns as contributing factors.
US District Judge Charlotte Sweeney, the first openly gay federal judge in Colorado, said she would hear victim testimony before deciding whether to accept the sentencing agreement.
Aldrich visited the club at least eight times before the attack, including dropping in an hour before the shooting, according to prosecutors.
Just before midnight, he returned wearing a tactical vest with ballistic plates and carrying an AR-15 style rifle and started firing immediately.
Aldrich killed the first person in the entryway, shot at bartenders and customers at the bar and then moved onto the dance floor, pausing to reload the rifle’s magazine.
The shooting was stopped by a Navy officer who grabbed the barrel of the suspect’s rifle, burning his hand, and an Army veteran who helped subdue Aldrich until police arrived, authorities have said.
