In this image taken from El Paso County District Court video, Anderson Lee Aldrich, center, sits during a court appearance in Colorado Springs, Colo., Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. (El Paso County District Court via AP)

The man who murdered five people in a Colorado Springs gay bar last November was sentenced today to life in prison after pleading guilty to the attack, according to numerous news reports, including this BBC News report.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 23, — who has since claimed to be non-binary, according to his lawyers — killed Daniel Aston, 28; Derrick Rump, 38; Kelly Loving, 40; Ashley Paugh, 34, and Raymond Vance, 22, that night. At least 17 others were injured in the incident.

As part of today’s plea deal, Aldrich was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole and 46 consecutive 48-year sentences for attempted murder. Aldrich pleaded no contest to charges that the attack was motivated by anti-LGBTQ hate, although they have previously denied the hate crime aspect.

Judge Michael McHenry said he believes Aldrich’s attack at Club Q “reflect the deepest malice of the human heart, and malice is almost always born of ignorance and fear.”

Aldrich walked into Club Q just minutes before midnight on Saturday night, Nov. 19, carrying an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle, multiple magazines full of ammo for the gun and a handgun and wearing body armor. Aldrich immediately opened on both staff and patrons firing into the crowd until Richard Fierro, a U.S. Army veteran who was at the club with family members to celebrate a birthday, rushed the shooter and subdued them.

Fierro burned his hand when he grabbed the muzzle of Aldrich’s rifle, but still managed to take the shooter to the ground, grab the handgun away from Aldrich and hit them with the butt of the handgun. Thomas James, a military servicemember who was in the club, rushed to help Fierro subdue Aldrick, as did a trans woman who used her high heels to stomp the shooter.

Aldrich, who today asked the court to be identified by the honorific “Mx.,” has claimed they were on a lot of drugs at the time of the attack, and today their attorneys said Aldrich is “deeply remorseful and deeply sorry” and “know they can’t do anything to make it better.”

But District Attorney Michael Allen, the prosecutor in this case, called Aldrich’s statements “self-serving” and “disgusting.” He said that the evidence in the case shows months of planning and premeditation by Aldrich that included evading background checks to purchase weapons and communicating “a hatred for minorities and those in the LGBTQ+ community. … These victims were targeted for who they were and are.”

Since Aldrich’s attorneys first said, in the days immediately after the shooting, that Aldrich is nonbinary, many people — including some who knew Aldrich — have disputed the claim, saying that the shooter was simply trying to avoid hate crime penalties.

— Tammye Nash