Police shoot up a gay bar

Topic: Courts. Multiple survivors and victims' relatives described in court their pain over the loss of their loved ones. AP: David Zalubowski. The man convicted of killing five people in a shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado has received multiple sentences of life in prison without possibility of release after pleading guilty to federal hate crime and gun charges.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 24, had already been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to state murder charges in a separate prosecution last year for the premeditated attack on employees and patrons of Club Q in Colorado Springs. Earlier this year, Aldrich agreed to also enter a guilty plea to all 74 federal charges and face additional life-imprisonment sentences for planning and carrying out the November 19, attack, when he entered the club armed with a semiautomatic rifle and a handgun on during a drag show.

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Anderson Lee Aldrich pleaded guilty to hate crimes for the attack on Club Q. Five people were killed and more than a dozen others were injured before two patrons managed to wrest Aldrich's weapons away. Earlier in the hearing, multiple survivors and victims' relatives described Club Q as a rare haven for LGBT people in the area, and recounted the pain of losing their loved ones.

Wyatt Kent, a drag performer at Club Q, was working there on the night of the attack alongside his partner Daniel Aston, a bartender killed by Aldrich. We continue to find joy in trauma and in pain, and unfortunately those are things that you will never experience for the rest of your life.

Several victims' relatives criticised the US government's decision not to pursue the death penalty. Vance, 22, had gone to Club Q with his girlfriend to celebrate a birthday. Prior to Tuesday's hearing, Aldrich's attorneys and prosecutors from the US attorney's office in Denver agreed that federal sentencing guidelines required multiple concurrent sentences of life in prison without possibility of parole and a consecutive sentence of years in prison.

The most serious crimes to which Aldrich pleaded guilty included charges of wilfully killing someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, man convicted of deadly Colorado gay club shooting, pleads guilty to hate crimes. Footer ABC News homepage.