The suspected Club Q shooter already faced more than 300 charges related to the mass shooting that took place in November. On Monday, January 9, District Attorney Michael J Allen filed a motion to add 12 new charges, including attempted murder, attempted assault, bodily injury with a deadly weapon, and bias-motivated crime–meaning, hate crime. The charges were added for two additional victims that were present on the night of the shooting. On Friday, January 13, a hearing took place in which these new charges were filed, bringing the number of charges up to 317 total.
The broad strokes of the story of that night are sadly familiar to many of us already. Armed with an AR-style weapon and a handgun, the shooter—who had previously been arrested in 2021 in an incident that uncovered bomb-making materials in their home, yet had the charges against them dropped for reasons unknown—opened fire inside Club Q, killing five people: two bartenders, Daniel Aston and Derrick Rump, and three patrons, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, and Ashley Paugh, and injuring 19 others. Bar patron Richard Fierro managed to wrestle the shooter to the ground, and several other patrons helped to hold them there until law enforcement arrived at the scene several minutes later. The shooter was later hospitalized, along with injured victims.
The shooter faces up to life in prison without parole if convicted on the first-degree murder charges. District Attorney Allen said that the shooter’s identity as nonbinary and use of they/them pronouns would have “no impact” on how his office would prosecute the case, including the bias-related crimes. The next time the shooter will be seen in court will be at a preliminary hearing on February 22. No information is yet available as to whether they will plead guilty or not guilty to the charges levied against them.
Club Q is expected to reopen sometime this year.
