Club Q Shooter Pleads Guilty in Court

The 23-year-old assailant who carried out a deadly shooting rampage at Club Q in Colorado Springs pleaded guilty on Monday to dozens of charges of murder and attempted murder, avoiding a prolonged trial over an attack on members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

Under the terms of a plea agreement reached with prosecutors after months of discussion with survivors and relatives of the dead, the defendant, Anderson Lee Aldrich, separately pleaded “no contest” to two state hate-crime charges.

The defendant was given multiple life sentences — meant to ensure that the defendant will never be released — and is waiving any right to appeal.

The defendant, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, stood on Monday in a courtroom packed with victims of the attack and relatives of the dead, and tersely answered a series of questions from Judge Michael McHenry about whether the defendant understood the terms of the plea.

Judge McHenry then read a list of dozens of names — those of the five people who were killed and others who were wounded or targeted — and asked: “How do you plead?”

“Guilty.”

After that, survivors and relatives walked one by one to a microphone to share tearful memories of the people who had been killed: Daniel Aston’s “burning blue eyes.” Derrick Rump’s smile. Raymond Green Vance’s gentle spirit. How Kelly Loving wanted others to be “unapologetically ourselves,” and how Ashley Paugh’s young children begged for someone to bring their mother back.

They also condemned the defendant as a “bigot,” “coward” and “animal.”

“He has destroyed a safe haven,” said Michael Anderson, a Club Q employee who survived the attack. “He has broken this community into pieces that may never be repaired.”

Many of the survivors and relatives referred to the defendant using male pronouns, dismissing the nonbinary identification as a sham and what one survivor’s mother called a “repugnant attempt” to win leniency. At a news conference afterward, District Attorney Michael J. Allen said there was “zero evidence” before the shooting that the shooter identified as nonbinary, and called the shooting a “terror attack based on hate.”

Mx. Aldrich showed little emotion as the speakers gave accounts of watching their friends lie dead on Club Q’s floor, or hiding for cover underneath bodies. Occasionally, the defendant glanced at a screen showing photographs of victims.

In the public gallery, crumpled tissues piled up on the floor.

In court, the defendant’s lawyer said the defendant was “deeply sorry for all the people they killed, the lives they impacted.”

The plea agreement was reached after months of agonizing private discussions among prosecutors, survivors and victims’ families over how to reach justice.

The defendant initially faced more than 300 criminal counts, but on Monday pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder and 46 counts of attempted murder. Different kinds of murder charges were combined as part of the plea agreement, while lesser charges like assault were to be dismissed.

Mr. Allen said the attack was calculated and driven by hate. In court, Mr. Allen said Mx. Aldrich deliberately tried to avoid undergoing firearms background checks by obtaining a rifle assembled from parts.

Because Colorado no longer imposes the death penalty, life in prison without the possibility of parole is the harshest punishment the defendant could receive under state law.

Some victims and family members initially wanted a public trial, rather than a plea agreement, in the hope of learning precisely how and why the shooter had attacked the club, and what warning signs had been missed. Others said they did not want to suffer the pain of seeing graphic video footage of the attack played in court.

Several survivors of the attack said it was important that the shooter acknowledge bias, and wanted recognition that Club Q patrons were attacked because of their identities, in a massacre deliberately calculated to shatter a sanctuary for the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Colorado Springs.

“The ‘why’ matters,” Mr. Allen said on Monday.

But Mx. Aldrich offered no details about why they carried out the shooting, and little explanation beyond a bare-bones admission using legal language. They did not directly admit to committing hate crimes in targeting Club Q, and instead said they were pleading “no contest” to those charges because it was likely that they would be convicted at trial.

Legal experts said the shooter’s gender identity alone did not preclude hate-crimes charges in the case. Prosecutors said that the defendant had a “particular disdain” for the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

“This plea deal is weakness to me,” said Ashtin Gamblin, who was hit with nine shots as she worked the door of Club Q on the night of the attack. She said the end of the criminal case would not bring any true closure for the victims. “It’s never going away for us,” she said.

In May, some victims took the first legal step toward filing a lawsuit against the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado Springs. In a notice of intent to file suit, the victims say that under Colorado’s red-flag laws, Mx. Aldrich’s guns should have been seized after Mx. Aldrich made a bomb threat against some relatives in 2021 and expressed an intention to become “the next mass killer.” An investigation was ended when the relatives refused to testify, law enforcement officials have said.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Denver could still pursue federal hate-crime charges against the defendant, which could result in a death sentence. An agent with the F.B.I.’s Denver office said on Monday that the agency was investigating the shooting along with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

On Monday, many of the victims’ families mourned the unfinished lives of the five people Mx. Aldrich killed, who were between 22 and 40 years old. Mr. Aston was robbed of his dreams of going back to college and having children, his mother said. Kassandra Fierro, the girlfriend of Raymond Green Vance, 22, said she would not be able to start a family or grow old with him.

“We went to Club Q that night to celebrate — dance, sing and laugh,” she said. “Only to have our entire futures ripped from us.”