Boulder shooting suspect charged with 10 counts of murder

Police identify a 21-year-old man from a Denver suburb as the gunman who killed 10 people at a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket.

Workers are escorted from the King Soopers supermarket in Boulder County, Colorado, following the shooting that left at least 10 dead. Picture: AFP

Police have identified a 21-year-old man from a Denver suburb as the gunman who shot and killed 10 people at a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket.

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Arvada opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon at the supermarket killing people ranging from 20 to 65 years of age, including a Boulder police officer, Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold said at a news conference Tuesday morning.

He has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

The suspected gunman was shot in the leg during a gunbattle with police responding to the shooting, Chief Herold said. He is currently hospitalised and officials said they expect him to be booked into the Boulder jail later Tuesday.

Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said investigators hadn’t identified a motive in the attack.

The suspected gunman is led away from the scene of the shooting. Picture: Twitter

Mr. Alissa was born in Syria, according to this Facebook page and a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. He is a naturalized U.S. citizen, the law enforcement official said.

Outside of a large-two story home in Arvada where Mr. Alissa is believed to have lived, neighbors said they saw heavily-armed law enforcement officers, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, questioning residents of the home Monday night and going inside the house.

Steve Weber, who lives on the same block, said he recognised the suspect in the Boulder shooting as someone who was at the house often.

On Tuesday, a young man answered the door of the home, but told reporters to go away. A woman inside the house also yelled for those for those inside not to open the door.

Neighbours said a large number of people appeared to live at the house, but the residents kept to themselves. The family had been living there for about a year, the neighbors said.

Mr. Alissa arrived at the King Soopers grocery store Monday afternoon, apparently driving in his brother’s Mercedes sedan, according to an arrest affidavit released Tuesday.

King Soopers employees told Boulder Police that a white male wearing a green tactical vest first shot an elderly man in the parking lot before standing over the man and shooting him several more times. The employees hid in the back of the store, as more gunfire rippled through the premises, the affidavit said.

SWAT officers who rushed inside the store found Officer Eric Talley inside, already dead from a gunshot wound to the head, and dragged him outside. Mr. Allssa continued to exchange gunfire with police before surrendering. Mr. Allissa, who had removed all his clothing save for his shorts, was bleeding from an upper thigh wound and asked to talk to his mother, according to the document.

Later that night, authorities questioned Mr. Alissa’s sister-in-law at his home. The woman, who wasn’t identified in the document, told police she had seen Mr. Alissa playing with what looked like a “machine gun” two days earlier, and that Mr. Allisa had remarked how he had gotten a bullet stuck in the gun. An unidentified member of the household was upset with Mr. Alissa for playing with the gun and took it, his sister-in-law told police.

Investigators subsequently determined he’d purchased what they described as a Ruger AR-556 pistol on March 16. An AR-style semi automatic pistol is a smaller version of the popular AR-style rifle that has been used in many of the deadliest mass shootings.

Mr. Alissa previously pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour third-degree assault charge in 2018, according to a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County District Attorney. He was sentenced to probation, according to court records.

Law-enforcement agencies are attempting to determine why Mr. Alissa targeted the grocery store in Boulder. The suspect passed other King Soopers stores on his way to the one in Boulder, one official briefed on the investigation said.

Mr. Alissa graduated in 2018 from Arvada West High School, where he was on the wrestling team during his junior and senior years, according to a spokeswoman for Jeffco Public Schools.

People run for cover in Boulder. Picture: AFP

Authorities responded to what they said was an active shooter at a supermarket in #Boulder, #Colorado. A man was taken out of the store in handcuffs by police. #Columbine#GunControl#GunControlNow#shooting#BoulderColorado#BoulderStrong#BoulderShootingpic.twitter.com/J7X7uJa6tf

— KarenDailyNews (@DailyNe25683877) March 23, 2021

The suspect posted frequently on Facebook about mixed martial arts and, to a lesser extent, about videogames, vacation photos and Islam. He once expressed his desire for a girlfriend.

His Facebook page said that he had started attending Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2018. A school spokesman said he never attended the university.

Officer Talley, 51, had worked for the Boulder Police Department since 2010. He had seven children, with the youngest aged 7, said his father Homer Talley. “Above all else he loved his family and his Lord Jesus Christ,” Homer Talley said.

The other victims of the shooting, according to police, were Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Teri Leiker, 51; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.

Shattered windows are shown at a King Soopers grocery store. Picture: AFP

Mr. Mahoney, of Boulder, had just walked his daughter down the aisle at her wedding last summer, his daughter, Erika Mahoney, said in a Twitter post. “My dad represents all things Love,” Ms. Mahoney, a public radio news director in Monterey, Calif., tweeted Tuesday morning. “I am now pregnant. I know he wants me to be strong for his granddaughter.” Colorado has been the setting of some of the nation’s worst mass shootings, including the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 where two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives. In 2012, a gunman opened fire at an Aurora movie theatre, killing 12 people and wounding dozens of others. Local lawmakers and law-enforcement officials harked back to those shootings as they reacted to Monday’s events.

“This cannot be our new normal. We should be able to feel safe in our grocery stores. We should be able to feel safe in our schools, in our movie theatres and in our communities,” said U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, who represents Boulder, at Tuesday’s news conference.

Mr. Dougherty, the district attorney, cited the extensive, multiagency investigation that followed the Aurora theatre shooting as a model for the investigation into Monday’s shooting.

“I can promise you we’ll hold him accountable,” he said of the suspect.

Wall Street Journal

A SWAT team member runs toward a King Soopers grocery store where a gunman opened fire in Boulder, Colorado. Picture: AFP