COLORADO SPRINGS — The man accused of opening fire at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado in a rampage that left five people dead and at least 17 injured, was formally charged Tuesday with 305 counts, including 10 counts of first-degree murder, 86 counts. of conspiracy to commit murder and 48 crimes with a biased motive.
Police say the suspect, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, walked through the front door of the Q Club in Colorado Springs near midnight on November 19, wearing body armor and carrying an assault-style rifle, and immediately start shooting. the attacker is handle and beat to submit by two patrons of the club unarmed and held until police arrived.
Tuesday’s hearing was the first time the defendant appeared in person since the shooting. Dressed in a bright yellow prison shirt, the defendant stood upright and attentive, and appeared to have recovered significantly since appearing in video court in the days immediately following the shooting. At that point, the suspect appeared to have collapsed, with puffy eyes and a bruised face, and was struggling just to speak.
Defendant is being held at the El Paso County Jail. After the charges were filed on Tuesday, the judge overseeing the case, Michael McHenry, set a preliminary hearing on the case for February. At the request of prosecutors, the judge agreed to unsealing the arrest warrant on Wednesday.
Defendant pleaded not guilty.
No clear motive for the shooting has emerged publicly. But prosecutors’ inclusion of a bias-motivated charge, commonly known as a hate crime, suggests they believe the attack was motivated specifically by antipathy towards the LGBTQ community.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, District Attorney Michael Allen declined to discuss the details of the investigation, but said his office feels confident it has evidence to substantiate the charges. bias motivated offenders.
“We will not tolerate actions against community members based on their gender identity,” Mr. Allen said. “Members of that community have been harassed, threatened, and abused for too long.”
Defense attorneys say the defendant identified as non-binary and used the pronouns “they” and “they”. When asked by reporters if the defendant’s gender identity would affect the alleged biased crime, Mr. Allen said that was “part of the picture.”
Prosecutors have decided to indict two counts of murder against each of the five people killed at the club, saying the defendant acted knowingly and knowingly and with extreme indifference. with human life.
Colorado abolished the death penalty in 2020, so the maximum possible sentence in this case is life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Mr. Allen said more charges have been brought in the case than most other charges in the history of the state. The number of charges could change as investigators try to track down everyone who was at the nightclub, he said.
Defendant was arrested in 2021 for making bomb threats during an hour-long confrontation with police. According to The Gazette, a Colorado Springs newspaper, an affidavit related to that arrest quoted the defendant as saying they wanted to be “the next mass shooter.” Details of that arrest have been sealed by the judge, and it remains unclear how the case was resolved. The district attorney said state law prohibits him from commenting on that case.
