Victims called the Colorado Springs mass shooter a “monster” who hunted down LGBTQ+ patrons in a calculated attack last year that killed five people.
Surviving victims and family members of those slain spoke during an emotional sentencing hearing Monday after the Club Q shooter pleaded guilty to murder and did not contest two hate crime charges.
“This thing sitting in this court room is not a human, it is a monster,” said Jessica Fierro, who’s daughter’s boyfriend was killed. “The devil awaits with open arms.”
The father of a Club Q bartender said Daniel Aston had been in the prime of his life when he was shot and killed.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
“He was huge light in this world that was snuffed out by a heinous, evil and cowardly act,” Jeff Aston said. “I will never again hear him laugh at my dad jokes.”
The guilty plea entered by Anderson Lee Aldrich comes just seven months after the shooting and spares victim’s families and survivors a long and potentially painful trial.
The shooter pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder. They also pleaded no contest to two counts of bias-motivated crimes, one a felony and the other a misdemeanor.
The defendant faces life in prison on the murder charges under the plea agreement.
People in the courtroom wiped away tears as Judge Michael McHenry explained the charges and read out the names of the victims.
Daniel Aston's mother, Sabrina, was among those who said they would not forgive the crimes.
Another forgave the shooter without excusing the crime.
“I forgive this individual, as they are a symbol of a broken system, of hate and vitriol pushed against us as a community,” said Wyatt Kent, Aston’s partner. “What brings joy to me is that this hurt individual will never be able to see the joy and the light that has been wrought into our community as an outcome.”
The shooter mostly looked down as the victims spoke.
“I intentionally and after deliberation caused the death of each victim,” they told the judge.
The guilty plea follows a series of jailhouse phone calls from the shooter to The Associated Press expressing remorse and the intention to face the consequences for the shooting.
Several survivors told the AP about the plea agreement after being approached about his comments to AP. They said prosecutors had notified them that the shooter, who is nonbinary and uses they and them pronouns, would plead guilty to charges that would ensure a sentence of life behind bars.
The shooter originally was charged with more than 300 state counts, including murder and hate crimes. The U.S. Justice Department is considering pursuing federal hate crime charges, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the matter who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing case.
The attack at Club Q came over a year after they had been arrested for threatening their grandparents and vowing to become “the next mass killer.” But, charges were ultimately dropped in that case.
Victims’ family members and survivors spoke at Monday's hearing about how their lives were forever altered by the terror that erupted just before midnight on Nov. 19 when the suspect walked into Club Q and indiscriminately fired an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.
The line to get through security early Monday snaked through the large plaza outside the courthouse as victims and others queued up to attend the hearing. One man wore a T-shirt saying “Loved Always & Never Forgotten” in honor of victim Daniel Davis Aston, a 28-year-old bartender and entertainer at Club Q who was killed in the shooting.
Aldrich hinted at plans to carry out violent attacks at least a year before the Club Q assault. In June 2021, their grandparents told authorities that they were warned not to stand in the way of a plan to stockpile guns, ammo, body armor and a homemade bomb to become “the next mass killer.” They were then arrested after a standoff with SWAT officers that was livestreamed on Facebook and the evacuation of 10 nearby homes, telling officers “If they breach, I’m a f------- blow it to holy hell!” They eventually surrendered.
However, the charges against them were thrown out in July 2022 after their mother and grandparents, the victims in the case, refused to cooperate with prosecutors, evading efforts to serve them with subpoenas to testify, according to court documents unsealed after the shooting. Other relatives told a judge they feared they would hurt their grandparents if released, painting a picture of an isolated, violent person who did not have a job and was given $30,000 that was spent largely on the purchase of 3D printers to make guns, the records showed.
They were released from jail then and authorities kept two guns — a ghost gun pistol and an MM15 rifle — seized in the arrest. But there was nothing to stop them from legally purchasing more firearms, raising questions immediately after the shooting about whether authorities should have sought a red flag order to prevent such purchases.
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said it would not have been able to seek a court order stopping them from buying or possessing guns because the 2021 arrest record was sealed after the charges were dropped. There was no new evidence that they could use to prove that they posed a threat “in the near future,” the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators later revealed that the two guns they had during the Club Q attack — the rifle and a handgun — appeared to be ghost guns, or firearms without serial numbers that are homemade and do not require an owner to pass a background check.
The shooter told AP in one of the interviews from jail they were on a “very large plethora of drugs” and abusing steroids at the time of the attack. But they did not answer directly regarding the hate crimes charges. When asked whether the attack was motivated by hate, they said only that was “completely off base.” Their attorneys, who have not disputed the shooters role in the attack, have also pushed back on hate being the reason.
Some survivors who listened to the recorded phone calls saw the shooter's comments as an attempt to avoid the death penalty which still exists in the federal system. Colorado abolished it in 2020 and life without prison is now the mandated sentence for first-degree murder in the state. They objected to the shooter's unwillingness to discuss a motive and their use of passive, general language like “I just can’t believe what happened” and “I wish I could turn back time.”
