DENVER, Colorado – The suspect in a mass shooting that killed 17 people and injured 17 at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ nightclub last year has pleaded guilty to the attack.
The defendant’s guilty plea, delivered Monday, comes just seven months after the shooting and avoids a lengthy and potentially painful trial for the victims’ families and survivors.
The statement was made during a court hearing, following a series of phone calls from the Aldrich jail to The Associated Press expressing remorse and an intention to face consequences for the shooting.
The suspect pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and you could face life in prison on the murder charges under the plea agreement. The agreement also includes the defendant’s guilty plea to 46 counts of attempted murder and two counts of hate crime.
Several survivors told The Associated Press about a planned plea deal after being contacted about the suspect’s comments. They said they had been notified by prosecutors that the suspect, who is non-binary and uses the pronouns “they” and “them,” would plead guilty to charges that would warrant a life sentence.
Initially, the suspect was facing more than 300 state charges, including murder and hate crimes. The US Department of Justice is considering filing federal hate crime charges, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the case, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing case.
The attack at Club Q occurred more than a year after the defendant was arrested for threatening his grandparents and vowing to become “the next perpetrator of a massacre.” However, the charges in that case were eventually dropped.
