Boulder shooting: suspect and 10 victims named by police
Boulder police released the names of the 10 people shot and killed at a Colorado grocery store on Monday and said the victims were between 20 and 65.
The Boulder police chief, Maris Herold, said at a press conference on Tuesday morning: “I’m so sorry this incident happened.”
Police said those who died were Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Eric Talley, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.
Herold said she lived three blocks from the King Soopers store where the shooting occurred. “I feel numb and it’s heartbreaking,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking to talk to victims, their families. It’s tragic.”
Police named the suspect as Ahmad al Aliwi Alissa. The 21-year-old was in stable condition at a hospital after being injured in the shooting and would be transported to a local jail soon, police said. Herold said he had been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. More details would be forthcoming, authorities said.
The Boulder county district attorney, Michael Dougherty, said it was too early to identify a motive. The FBI encouraged people to share information.
Police had previously identified one victim in the shooting, the first police officer to arrive at the scene, Eric Talley. The 51-year-old father of seven was looking for less dangerous work, his father said.
“He was looking for a job to keep himself off of the frontlines and was learning to be a drone operator,” Homer Talley said in a statement. “He didn’t want to put his family through something like this.”
Police said families of the victims were all notified by 4am on Tuesday.
Lori Olds, the aunt of victim Rikki Olds, told the Denver Post her niece worked as a front-end manager at the grocery store.
“Thank you everyone for all your prayers but the Lord got a beautiful young angel yesterday at the hands of a deranged monster,” Olds wrote in a public post on her Facebook page.
Before leaving the White House to visit Ohio, Biden told reporters: “Our hearts go out to the survivors who had to flee for their lives. The consequences of all this are deeper than I suspect we know.”
Biden also expressed his “deepest thanks to the heroic police and other first responders” and commended “the exceptional bravery of Officer Eric Talley”.
“That’s the definition of an American hero,” he said.
It was the second large-scale shooting in a public place in a week. Last Tuesday, a gunman shot and killed eight people – all but one of them women, six of Asian descent – at spas in the Atlanta area.
There had been no large-scale shootings in the US for a year before then, though other types of shootings increased last year.
In 2020, a record 41,000 people died in gun violence according to the independent research group Gun Violence Archive. The number includes more than 23,000 people who died by suicide.
The advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety said federal action was needed to prevent gun violence.
“Gun violence is an epidemic within the pandemic, from Boulder yesterday to Atlanta last week to the dozens more people in the United States who are shot every day, but whose stories do not make the headlines,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown.
Biden called on Congress to close the loopholes in the background checks system and once again ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common-sense steps that will save lives in the future,” Biden said, noting that details of the gun used by the gunman in Boulder were not yet known. “This is not and should not be a partisan issue. It is an American issue.”
In Congress, a previously scheduled hearing about gun violence was set for Tuesday. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, tweeted: “This Senate must and will move forward on legislation to help stop the epidemic of gun violence.”
There is widespread support for stricter gun laws, but Republicans have repeatedly blocked efforts to regulate firearms.
Earlier this month, the House passed two pieces of legislation that would expand background checks. But they will struggle in the Senate, where Republicans have said they oppose
the bills. A poll last year said 83% of Americans support comprehensive background checks.
In his own statement, released before Biden spoke, Barack Obama said
Americans were “feeling a deep, familiar outrage”. The former president also called for immediate action to stop gun violence.
“It is long past time for those with the power to fight the epidemic of gun violence to do so. It will take time to root out the disaffection, racism and misogyny that fuels so many of these senseless acts of violence,” Obama said. “But we can make it harder for those with hate in their hearts to buy weapons of war.”
The former president acknowledged that mass shootings had declined during the coronavirus pandemic and said the US could not afford to return to its “normal” epidemic of gun crime as the country reopens.
“A once-in-a-century pandemic cannot be the only thing that slows mass shootings in this country,” Obama said. “We shouldn’t have to choose between one type of tragedy and another.”