Daily Times

The suspect in a mass shooting that left five people dead at a club in the US state of Colorado was charged Tuesday with 305 criminal counts, including murder.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, has been in custody since the rampage last month in Club in Colorado Springs that also left at least 18 people wounded.

The suspect, who court-appointed lawyers have said identifies as non-binary, appeared handcuffed and shackled in court on Tuesday to face the litany of charges.

They include 10 counts of first-degree murder — two for each fatality, one for murder with intent, and one of murder with extreme indifference. Both charges carry a maximum life sentence without the possibility of parole. It is not uncommon in the United States for prosecutors to levy multiple charges for the same crime. So-called “charge stacking” increases the likelihood of conviction in cases where a jury finds the circumstances do not exactly fit one of the charges, and would therefore find the defendant not guilty.

Aldrich, who did not speak during Tuesday’s appearance, also faces 86 counts of attempted first-degree murder, as well as dozens of bias-motivated crimes — the name for hate crimes in Colorado — and dozens more of assault. District Attorney Michael Allen told reporters that the sheer number of charges is an indicator of how seriously authorities are taking the attack.