Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, reportedly laughed and laughed alone while making a mess at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, this week, killing 10 people.
“We could hear a man laughing,” Angelina Romero-Chavez, who was at the deli when the shooting started, told the Denver Post on Saturday. “The shots were close. We believe it was him laughing.”
The police also noted the suspect’s distressing disposition, reporting on the radio, “This guy is laughing at us,” according to the Denver Post.
Alissa was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and first appeared in court on Thursday when her lawyer asked for a mental health review.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, appears before Boulder District Court judge Thomas Mulvahill at the Boulder County Justice Center in Boulder, Colorado, on March 25, 2021. Three days after he was taken handcuffed by a Boulder supermarket where 10 people were shot dead, Alissa appeared in court for the first time and her defense attorney asked for a mental health assessment “to treat her mental illness”.
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“Our position is that we cannot do anything until we can fully assess Alissa’s mental illness,” said Alissa’s lawyer, public defender Kathryn Herold, in court.
Alissa was also charged with attempted murder, and Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said the authorities plan to open more charges in the coming weeks.
Authorities have yet to disclose the reason and it is unclear why the supermarket was targeted.
“Like the rest of the community, we also want to know why – why that King Soopers, why Boulder, why on Monday,” Boulder’s chief of police, Maris Herold, told a news conference on Monday- market. “It will be a scary thing for all of us until we find that out. Sometimes you just don’t understand these things. But, I’m waiting for us to do it.”
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The suspect acquired the Ruger AR-556 pistol, which resembles an AR-15 rifle, six days before the shooting at the Eagles Nest Armory in the Denver suburb of Arvada, where he lived. He passed a background check conducted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
He also had a 9 mm firearm, but the police do not believe he used it in the shooting and it is unclear how he acquired it.
Officer Eric Talley, who was shot in the head and died, led a team of police officers to the store 30 seconds after arriving at the scene.
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“No other individual was shot or killed after these brave officers faced the suspect,” Boulder police said Friday.
The other nine victims were 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 Jodi Waters, 65.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.