A suspect in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub is expected to plead a plea deal to plead murder and hate charges that secure at least a life sentence for the attack he killed five people and injured 17several survivors told The Associated Press.
News of a possible legal resolution of last year’s Club Q massacre follows a series of phone calls from the suspect’s jail to the AP expressing remorse and an intention to face the consequences at the next court hearing scheduled for this month.
“I have to take responsibility for what happened,” Anderson Lee Aldrich, 23, said in his first public comments on the case.
Federal and state authorities and defense attorneys declined to comment on a potential plea deal. But Colorado law requires victims to be notified of such dealings, and several people who lost loved ones or were injured in the attack told the AP that state prosecutors have told them in advance that Aldrich will plead guilty to the charges. charges that would warrant the state’s maximum sentence. of life behind bars.
Prosecutors also recently asked survivors to prepare for the June 26 hearing by writing victim impact statements and preparing emotionally for the potential release of surveillance video of the Q Club attack.
“Someone is gone who can never be brought back through the justice system,” said Wyatt Kent, who was celebrating his 23rd birthday at Club Q when Aldrich opened fire, fatally shooting Kent’s partner Daniel Aston, who I worked behind the bar. «We all still lack a lot, a partner, a son, a daughter, a best friend.»
Jonathan Pullen, the suspect’s adoptive grandfather who plans to watch the upcoming hearing on a live broadcast, said Aldrich “has to realize what happened that terrible night. It’s really starting to dawn on him.»
Aldrich faces more than 300 state charges, including murder and hate crimes. And the US Department of Justice is considering filing federal hate crime charges, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the matter who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing case. It’s unclear if the state attorney’s advance ruling will also resolve the ongoing FBI investigation.
Some survivors who heard the suspect’s recorded comments to the AP criticized them as a calculated attempt to avoid the federal death penalty, saying they stopped short of discussing a motive, placed much of the blame on drugs and characterized the crime in generalities. passives like «I just can’t believe what happened» and «I wish I could turn back time.» Such language, they said, belied by maps, diagrams, online rants and other evidence showing months of conspiracy and premeditation.
“Nobody really likes him,” said Michael Anderson, who was working as a bartender at Club Q when the shooting broke out and ducked as patrons were shot dead around him. “This community has to live with what happened, with collective trauma, with PTSD, trying to grieve the loss of our friends, to get over the emotional wounds, and get over what we heard and saw and smelled.”
terror broke out just before midnight on November 19, when the suspect entered Club Q, a longtime sanctuary for the LGBTQ community in this largely conservative city of 480,000, and fired an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle indiscriminately. Disbelief gave way to screaming and confusion as the music continued to play. Partygoers dove across a fucking dance floor for cover. The friends frantically tried to protect each other and covered the wounds with napkins.
The killing only stopped after a Navy petty officer grabbed the suspect’s rifle barrel and burned his hand because it was so hot. An Army veteran joined in to help subdue and beat Aldrich until police arrived to discover the shooter had emptied a high-capacity magazine and was armed with several more.
Aldrich, who since his arrest identified as non-binary and uses the pronouns they and they, reportedly visited Club Q at least six times in the years leading up to the attack. District Attorney Michael Allen told a judge that the suspect’s mother made Aldrich come to the club «against his will and kind of forced that culture on him.»
Allen also said the suspect ran a website that posted shooting training video of «neo-Nazi white supremacists.» Friends of the online games said Aldrich expressed hatred for the police, LGBTQ people and minorities and used anti-black and anti-gay slurs. And a police detective testified that Aldrich posted an online message with a photo of a rifle scope pointed at a gay pride parade.
Defense attorneys in previous hearings have not questioned Aldrich’s role in the shooting, but have rejected allegations that it was motivated by hate, arguing that the suspect was high on cocaine and medication the night of the attack.
«I don’t know if this is common knowledge, but I was taking a lot of drugs,» Aldrich told the AP. “He had been awake for days. He was abusing steroids. … I was finally able to get out of that shit he was in.”
Aldrich did not directly respond when asked if the attack was hate-motivated, saying only that that is «completely out of line.»
Even a former friend of Aldrich’s found his comments false. «I’m really glad he’s trying to take responsibility, but it’s like the ‘why’ is swept under the rug,» said Xavier Kraus, who lived across the hall from Aldrich in a Colorado apartment complex. Springs.
The AP sent Aldrich a handwritten letter several months ago asking them to discuss a 2021 kidnapping arrest following a confrontation with a SWAT team, an indictment that had been dismissed and sealed despite video evidence of Aldrich’s crimes. In that case, just months before the Club Q shooting, they threatened to become “the next mass murderer” and stockpiled weapons, ammunition, body armor and a pipe bomb. The incident was broadcast live on Facebook and prompted the evacuation of 10 nearby homes when authorities discovered a vat of more than 100 pounds of explosive materials.
The suspected shooter, who was living with his grandparents at the time and was upset about their plans to move to Florida, threatened to kill the couple and «go up in flames,» authorities said. “You die today and I will take you with me,” the suspect was quoted as saying. «I’m loaded and ready.»
The charges were dismissed even after relatives wrote a warning from the judge that Aldrich was «sure» of committing murder if released. District Attorney Allen, who faced heavy criticism, later blamed the dismissal of the case on Aldrich’s family members who refused to cooperate and repeatedly dodged subpoenas from other states.
In response to the AP letter, Aldrich first phoned a reporter in March and asked him to pay for an interview, a request that was denied. They called again late last month, days after prosecutors wrote in a court filing that there was «near unanimous sentiment» among victims for «the most expeditious determination of the issues related to the case.»
In a series of six calls, each limited to 15 minutes by an automated jail phone system, the suspect said: “Nothing is going to bring your loved ones back. People are going to have to live with injuries that cannot be repaired.”
When asked why it happened, they said: “I don’t know. That’s why I think it’s so hard to understand what happened. … Either I will receive the death penalty at the federal level or I will go to prison for life, that is a fact.”
While the AP would not normally provide a platform to someone who allegedly committed such a crime, the editors judged that the suspect’s stated intent to accept responsibility and expression of remorse were newsworthy and should be reported.
Former Club Q bartender Anderson was among the survivors who told prosecutors they wanted a speedy resolution of the criminal case.
«My fear is that if this takes years, it will prevent prosecution and move on and find peace beyond this case,» he said. «I would love to finish this as quickly as possible under the guarantee that justice is served.»