Man, 21, charged in killing of 10 at Colorado grocery
Suspect bought a military-style weapon last week
BOULDER, Colo. — A 21year-old man was charged Tuesday with murder in the grocery store rampage that left 10 people dead in this Denver suburb, the nation’s second mass shooting in less than a week.
The gunman was armed with a military-style semiautomatic rifle and a pistol when he walked into the King Sooper’s store Monday and opened fire, officials said.
They identified the suspect who was arrested at the scene as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, who lived in Arvada, a nearby suburb. He was charged Tuesday with 10 counts of first-degree murder, which in Colorado carries a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A police affidavit made public Tuesday said that last week he bought a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic pistol — essentially a shortened version of an AR-15 style rifle, which fires the same small-caliber, high-velocity ammunition, first developed for battlefield use.
Alissa was previously known to the FBI because he was linked to another person under investigation by the bureau, law enforcement officials said.
When he was a senior at Arvada West High School, Alissa was convicted in 2018 of misdemeanor assault against another student; he told the police it was in retaliation for insults and ethnic taunts. Fellow students recall him as having a fierce temper that would flare in response to setbacks or slights.
Alissa’s brother described him to the Daily Beast as mentally ill, paranoid and antisocial.
Court records show that Alissa was born in Syria in 1999, as did a Facebook page that appeared to belong to the suspect, giving his name as Ahmad Al Issa. The page was taken down within an hour of his name being released by the authorities.
Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said Alissa has “lived most of his life in the United States.”
Alissa was a wrestler in high school, and the Facebook page listed wrestling and kickboxing as being among his interests, and many of the posts were about martial arts. One, in 2019, said simply, “#Needagirlfriend.”
Among the victims of Monday’s massacre was Boulder police officer Eric Talley, 51, who was the first on the scene after a “barrage” of 911 calls about the shooting, Chief Maris Herold said.
Homer Talley, 74, described his son as a devoted father who “knew the Lord.” He had seven children, ages 7 to 20.
“We know where he is,” his father said from his ranch in Central Texas. “He loved his family more than anything. He wasn’t afraid of dying. He was afraid of putting them through it.”
The nine other victims were identified as Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.
Herold said at a news conference that police officers had run into the King Soopers grocery store within minutes of the shooting and had shot at the suspect. No other officers were injured, she said.
Alissa was taken to a hospital for treatment of a leg injury.
A video streamed live from outside of the grocery store Monday showed Alissa — handcuffed, shirtless and with his right leg covered in blood — being taken from the building by officers.
Employees and shoppers inside the store described a harrowing scene.
“I thought I was going to die,” said Alex Arellano, 35, who was working in the store’s meat department when he heard a series of gunshots and saw people running toward an exit.
The rampage came just six days after another gunman’s deadly shooting spree at massage parlors in the Atlanta area.
“Flags had barely been raised back to full mast after the tragic shooting in Atlanta that claimed eight lives, and now a tragedy here, close to home, at a grocery store that could be any of our neighborhood grocery stores,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, said at the news conference.
He noted that he was “someone who has called this community my home for most of my whole life and who has shopped at that King Soopers in Table Mesa many times.”
Reacting to a rampage that came 10 days after a judge blocked a ban on assault rifles passed by the city of Boulder in 2018, President Joe Biden urged Congress to tighten the nation’s gun laws.
“Ten lives have been lost, and more families have been shattered by gun violence in the state of Colorado,” Biden said at the White House.
Rep. Joe Neguse, D-colo., said mass shootings can’t become the “new normal.”
“In this year of separation due to COVID, of loss and of loneliness, grocery stores like King Soopers have been one of our consistent gathering places, one of the few routine activities that we’ve continued to engage in as Coloradans and as Americans,” Neguse said. “It’s hard to describe what it means for this safe place to see a horrible tragedy like this unfold.”