Multiple people killed in shooting at Colorado supermarket in seventh mass killing this year

Boulder, Colorado: A shooting at a crowded Colorado supermarket that killed 10 people, including a police officer, sent terrorised shoppers and workers scrambling for safety and stunned a state that has grieved several mass killings. A lone suspect was in custody, authorities said.

Hundreds of police officers from throughout the Denver metropolitan area responded to the attack on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), converging on a King Soopers supermarket in a busy shopping plaza in southern Boulder. SWAT officers carrying ballistic shields slowly approached the store as others quickly escorted frightened people away from the building, some of its windows shattered. Customers and employees fled through a back loading dock to safety. Others took refuge in nearby shops.

Police work on the scene outside a grocery store where a shooting took place.Credit: AP

One suspect was in custody, a tearful Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold said. Authorities didn’t identify the suspect, though Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said the suspect was the only person injured and was receiving medical care.

Officers had escorted a shirtless man in handcuffs, blood running down his leg, from the store during the siege. Authorities would not say if he was the suspect. Foothills Hospital in Boulder was treating one person from the shooting scene but refused further comment, said Rich Sheehan, spokesman for Boulder Community Health, which operates the hospital.

Killed: Officer Eric Talley was first on the scene.Credit: Boulder Police/AP

“This is a tragedy and a nightmare for Boulder County,” Dougherty said. “These were people going about their day, doing their shopping. I promise the victims and the people of the state of Colorado that we will secure justice.”

The officer killed was Eric Talley, 51, who had been with Boulder police since 2010, Herold said.

Talley was the first on the scene, Herold said, lauding his intervention as “heroic.”

Talley had been looking to eventually find a new line of work, his father Homer said in a statement issued to local media.

“He was looking for a job to keep himself off of the front lines and was learning to be a drone operator. He didn’t want to put his family through something like this,” Homer Talley said.

“He had seven children. The youngest is seven-years-old. He loved his kids and his family more than anything.”

Dozens of police and emergency vehicles, their lights flashing, escorted an ambulance carrying the officer from the shooting scene after nightfall. Some residents stood along the route, their arms raised in salute.

Identities of the other nine victims were not disclosed as police were still notifying their family members.

Police said it was too early to speculate on a motive and that the investigation involving local, state and federal agencies would take days.

The attack in Boulder, about 40 kilometres north-west of Denver and home to the University of Colorado, stunned a state that has seen several mass shootings, including the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and the 2012 Aurora movie theatre shooting.

It was the seventh mass killing this year in the US, following the March 16 shooting that left eight people dead at three Atlanta-area massage businesses, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.

It follows a lull in mass killings during the pandemic in 2020, which had the smallest number of such attacks in more than a decade, according to the database, which tracks mass killings defined as four or more dead, not including the shooter.

Police work on the scene outside a King Soopers grocery store where a shooting took place in Boulder, Colorado.Credit: AP

Dean Schiller told The Associated Press that he had just left the supermarket when he heard gunshots and saw three people lying face down, two in the parking lot and one near the doorway. He said he “couldn’t tell if they were breathing.”

Video posted on YouTube showed one person on the floor inside the store and two more outside on the ground. What sounds like two gunshots are also heard at the beginning of the video.

Sarah Moonshadow told the Denver Post that two shots rang out just after she and her son, Nicolas Edwards, finished buying strawberries. She said she told her son to get down and then “we just ran”.

Once they got outside, she said they saw a body in the parking lot. Edwards said police were speeding into the lot and pulled up next to the body.

“I knew we couldn’t do anything for the guy,” he said. “We had to go.”

James Bentz told the Post that he was in the meat section when he heard what he thought was a misfire, then a series of pops.

“I was then at the front of a stampede,” he said.

Bentz said he jumped off a loading dock out back to escape and that younger people were helping older people off of it.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis tweeted a statement that his “heart is breaking as we watch this unspeakable event unfold in our Boulder community.”

Police had told people to shelter in place amid a report of an “armed, dangerous individual” about 5 kilometres away from the grocery store but said at the news conference later that it wasn’t related to the shooting.

The FBI said it was helping in the investigation at the request of police.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting.

In a statement, the King Soopers chain offered “thoughts, prayers and support to our associates, customers, and the first responders who so bravely responded to this tragic situation. We will continue to cooperate with local law enforcement and our store will remain closed during the police investigation.”

Kevin Daly, owner of Under the Sun Eatery and Pizzeria Restaurant a block or so from the supermarket, said he was in his shop when he saw police cars arriving and shoppers running from the grocery store. He said he took in several people to keep them warm, and others boarded a bus provided by Boulder police and were taken away.

A witness who spoke to The Denver Post said the shooter did not say anything - “he just came in and started shooting.”

A man told a TV station that his grandchildren were in the store during the shooting. He said they hid in a closet as the incident unfolded and as police dropped in through the roof.

Police work on the scene outside of a King Soopers grocery store where a shooting took place in Boulder, Colorado. Credit: AP

Daniel Douglas was in the store, picking up lunch and flowers for his girlfriend when the gunshots began.

“Nobody knew what was going on, so we started screaming: ‘Hit the ground’,” he told Fox 31 Denver.

At some point, he said, the shooter moved to the front of the shop, while Douglas and other customers rushed to the back of the building, where he said many others were hiding and trying to escape. A co-worker kicked open the emergency-exit door so people could get out, he said.

“A lot of people were petrified. A lot of people were crying,” he said.

Ryan Borowski, another survivor, expressed the same shock and disbelief about the shooting.

“Boulder feels like a bubble and that bubble burst,” Borowski told CNN. “It feels like nowhere is safe.” Borowski said he was inside the supermarket to get a bag of chips and a drink when the shooting started.

AP, Washington Post, Reuters