'Non-binary' shooter behind Colorado LGBT club massacre will plead guilty to federal hate crime charges

The so-called "non-binary" shooter behind the November 2022 massacre at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs received five consecutive life sentences plus an additional 2,208 years of prison time in June. He is now set add some years to the total, pleading guilty to 74 counts of federal hate and gun crime charges.

The shooter hung out at Club Q on Nov. 19, 2022, then briefly left, returning dressed in body armor and toting a semi-automatic rifle. He proceeded to murder five people and injure 19 in what the Department of Justice characterized as a "willful, deliberate, malicious and premeditated attack." While he attempted to mow down dozens of additional victims, heroic patrons at the club were able to restrain him until police arrived on the scene.

The victims killed in the shooting were Daniel Aston, 28; Kelly Loving, 40; Ashley Paugh, 35; Derrick Rump, 38; and Raymond Green Vance, 22.

The mother of Ashtin Gamblin, a victim who was riddled with bullets but nevertheless managed to survive, asked the judge presiding over the shooter's state case to "lock this animal away to the depths of hell."

Judge Michael McHenry obliged the victim's mother, ensuring the shooter, now 23, would never again walk free, with thousands of years of prison time and no chance at parole.

"That is the longest sentence ever achieved in the Fourth Judicial District and the second, to my knowledge, longest sentence ever achieved in the state of Colorado, second only to the sentence achieved in the Aurora theater shooting case," said Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen, reported CNN.

While the shooter, son of a pornographer, identified as "non-binary" in court filings for the case and indicated his pronouns were "they/them," Allen addressed him as a male throughout the case, stressing that "there is zero evidence prior to the shooting that he was non-binary."

On Tuesday, the DOJ announced the shooter had been slapped with hate crime and firearms charges.

CNN, which elected to use the shooter's preferred pronouns, reported that the shooter struck a deal with prosecutors whereby he will plead guilty to all 74 counts — including 50 hate crime charges — and in exchange receive "multiple concurrent life sentences plus additional consecutive sentences totaling 190 years imprisonment," in the event a judge approves of the plea deal.

The Jan. 9 plea agreement was unsealed Tuesday after the shooter pleaded not guilty earlier in the day, reported the Associated Press.

While the death penalty was on the table, the plea agreement would let the shooter squeak by unscathed.

"It's angering and upsetting," said Ashtin Gamblin, reported Colorado Public Radio, which revised Gamblin's comments to respect the mass shooter's preferred pronouns. "Honestly I was hoping for a death penalty."

"I feel like [they] just got grounded, personally, it feels like with the 2,208 years, it's like [they] got grounded, go sit in your room for the rest of your life," said Gamblin. "The death penalty for me. … I just want [them] to sit with the thought of not knowing when [they're] going to die, or the fact [they] could die at any day, at any time, because that’s exactly what [they] did to us."

Michael Anderson, who was bartending at the club on the night of the shooting, suggested the federal charges would send "a message to people who want to commit violent acts against this community, and lets them know this is not something that is swept away or overlooked."

The shooter told the AP that at the time of the shooting, he was on a "very large plethora of drugs" and abusing steroids.

Just over a year before the shooting, the "non-binary" shooter was reportedly arrested for threatening his grandparents and vowing to become "the next mass killer," stockpiling weapons and bomb-making materials. He was cut loose and his case was dismissed in 2021after his grandparents stopped cooperating with prosecutors.

The shooter is presently siting in the Wyoming State Penitentiary, having been relocated on account of safety concerns.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!