Shooter who killed 5 at a Colorado LGBTQ+ club set to plead guilty to federal hate crimes

By COLLEEN SLEVIN
Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — A sentencing hearing has begun for the person who killed five people and wounded over a dozen others during a mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs. Anderson Lee Aldrich is set to plead guilty to federal hate crime charges Tuesday. Prosecutors are expected to show that Aldrich was spreading anti-gay slurs online in the weeks before the 2022 attack. Aldrich is already serving a life sentence in prison after pleading guilty to state charges last year and pleading no contest to hate crimes in that case. In the federal case, prosecutors have focused on proving the attack at Club Q was premeditated and fueled by bias against LGBTQ+ people.