Suspect described as short-tempered, violent
The 21-year-old Colorado man arrested in Monday’s mass shooting at a Boulder supermarket was violent, short-tempered and paranoid during high school, his former classmates said.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa is suspected of killing 10 people at the King Soopers grocery store when he walked in around 2:30 p.m. and began shooting, according to law enforcement. He was taken into custody about an hour later with a gunshot wound in his leg.
Alissa was hospitalized for treatment and was expected to be transported to the Boulder County Jail Tuesday to face 10 counts of first-degree murder.
He attended Arvada West High School from 2015 until he graduated in 2018, Jeffco Public Schools spokeswoman Cameron Bell confirmed Tuesday. He was on the wrestling team his junior and senior years.
“He was kind of scary to be around,” said Dayton Marvel, a teammate on the wrestling team. Alissa once had an outburst and threatened to kill people during an intra-team match, Marvel said.
“His senior year, during the wrestle-offs to see who makes varsity, he actually lost his match and quit the team and yelled out in the wrestling room that he was, like, going to kill everybody,” Marvel said. “Nobody believed him. We were just all kind of freaked out by it, but nobody did anything about it.”
Marvel said he did not like spending time with Alissa, and Alissa was not close with anyone on the wrestling team. Another teammate, Angel Hernandez, said Alissa got into a fight in the parking lot after the match.
Hernandez said Alissa frequently appeared to be paranoid about perceived slights against him, and Marvel said Alissa was often concerned about being targeted because of his Muslim faith.
Alissa purchased an assault weapon less than a week earlier, authorities added. On Monday, he allegedly went into the market armed with both a militarystyle semiautomatic rifle and a pistol.