More charges for Club Q mass shooting suspect

(CN) — A Colorado judge on Friday accepted an amended criminal complaint adding 12 charges against the individual accused of killing five people at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs this past November. Anderson Aldrich, 22, now faces 316 charges including first degree murder, attempted murder, serious bodily injury with a deadly weapon and bias motivated crime.

“I made mention of the possibility of this early on that as we continued the investigation we may be filing additional charges as we identified additional victims,” said 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen. The new charges reflect two newly identified victims.

Authorities say Aldrich killed five people and injured 22 others during a dance party at Club Q, an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs, 70 miles south of Denver. The shooting occurred the evening before Transgender Day of Remembrance, honoring those who have suffered violence.

Aldrich is being held without bail and faces up to life in prison without parole. Colorado repealed the death penalty in 2020.

Richard Fierro, a U.S. Army veteran who was attending Club Q's drag show with his family, saved lives when he helped tackle and restrain Aldrich on Nov. 19. Fierro's daughter's boyfriend, 22-year-old Raymond Green Vance, was killed during the attack.

Daniel Davis Aston, 28, Kelly Loving, 40, Ashley Paugh, 35, and Derrick Rump, 38, also died in the attack.

On behalf of Aldrich, state public defender Joseph Archambault requested the defense provide more information about its evidence of a bias-motivated crime, colloquially referred to as hate crimes.

Fourth Judicial District Judge Michael McHenry vehemently denied Archambault’s request for more time to review the body of evidence prior to holding a preliminary hearing, saying the public defender’s office should reassign the case if Aldrich’s current attorneys have too many assignments to give this one adequate time.

The prosecution plans to present security footage from the attack at the preliminary hearing on Feb. 22.

In 2021, Aldrich was charged with felony menacing and first-degree kidnapping after claiming to be building a bomb and desiring to become a mass shooter. The criminal complaint was originally sealed when the charges were dismissed last August just three months before the Club Q attack. A judge ordered the records unsealed in December after they were leaked to the press, and this week declined to hold the El Paso County Sheriff's Office in contempt for the leak.

The Gun Violence Archive tracked 44,269 gun deaths in 2022 along with 648 mass shootings.

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