The shooter at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs was being held on murder and hate crime charges, while hundreds of people gathered to honor the five people killed and 17 wounded in the attack on a venue that for decades was a sanctuary for the local LGBTQ community. Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, faces five murder charges and five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury in the attack at Club Q, online court records showed.
Although the attacker is being charged with a hate crime, he is on being charged with an act of terrorism. There have been a number of homophobic attacks around recently. Until recently, if an attacker is considered Muslim, they are assumed to be terrorists. More recently, the attacker would have to have ideological purpose are considered terrorists.
A white gunman who targeted a grocery in Buffalo, New York, because it was the city with the most Black residents in closest proximity to his home, will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to murder and hate crime charges in the May 14 shooting at Tops Friendly Market. Thirteen people, including 11 Black people and two white people, were shot in the massacre, which the suspect had streamed on the social media platform Twitch.
Payton Gendron, 19, on Monday, pleaded guilty to 25 state counts of domestic terrorism motivated by hate, first-degree murder and attempted murder as a hate crime and weapons possession. The domestic terrorism motivated by hate charge carries an automatic life sentence upon conviction.
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