‘Another American city has been scarred’
Three were gunned down while putting in a day’s work at a Colorado supermarket. Another was a police officer who raced in to try to rescue them and others from the attack that left 10 dead. A picture of the victims of Tuesday’s shooting began to emerge a day later, when the suspect in the killings was booked into jail on murder charges after being treated at a hospital.
Those who lost their lives at the King Soopers store in Boulder ranged from 20 years old to 65. They included a magazine photographer, a Medicare agent with a passion for theatre and others going about their days at a busy shopping plaza. They were identified as Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; police Officer Eric Talley, 51; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jodi Waters, 65.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, was charged with 10 murders after being wounded in a gunfight with police that left one officer dead. Investigators said that Alissa, from Arvada in the nearby Denver suburbs, was born in Syria and lived in the US most of his life. His motive was unknown. He is said to have used an AR-15-type weapon.
The mass shooting – the second in the country in less than a week – has reignited the debate on gun violence, even as investigators struggle to identify a motive for this latest, horrific event.
President Joe Biden lamented the mass shooting, saying he was devastated that ‘‘another American city has been scarred by gun violence and the resulting trauma’’.
‘‘Ten lives have been lost and more families have been shattered by gun violence in the state of Colorado and Jill and
I are devastated . . . we have been through too many of these,’’ Biden said.
‘‘We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator ... and it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again.’’
He called on the Senate to pass two bills already passed in the House of Representatives to close background check loopholes.
‘‘We should also ban assault weapons in the process.’’
His spokesman suggested one option was to issue a ban through executive order, bypassing Congress.
In Washington, politicians on Capitol Hill debated next steps, each side taking their familiar positions. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said Democrats would ‘‘keep fighting’’ to end
gun violence, while Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the talk about gun control ‘‘ridiculous theatre’’.
On March 12 a judge in Colorado overruled a local ban on assault rifles by the city of Boulder.
Court documents showed Alissa had an assault conviction from 2018 for punching a classmate because he ‘‘had made fun of him and called him racial names weeks earlier’’.
Alissa’s brother said he did not think the motive for the shootings was political. ‘‘[It was] not at all a political statement, it’s mental illness,’’ Ali Aliwi Alissa told The Daily Beast. ‘‘The guy used to get bullied a lot in high school, he was an outgoing kid but after he went to high school and got bullied a lot, he started becoming anti-social.’’ –