A worker at a Colorado supermarket, where 10 people were shot in a mass shootout on Monday, recalled the moment when the sniper surrendered himself to the police just steps from where she was hiding.
“I surrender, I am naked,” suspected sniper Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa shouted to the police about 30 minutes after the shooting began at the King Soopers in Boulder, Maggie Montoya told CPR News.
Montoya, 25, works at the pharmacy inside the store and was helping with coronavirus vaccination when she heard the first shots at around 2:30 pm, she told The New York Times.
She told the newspaper that a person waiting in line at the pharmacy was hit by a shootout.
“I just heard our store manager yell, ‘Active shooter’, and we all dispersed,” Montoya told CPR News.
Montoya said he sought security with a co-worker inside a small room attached to the pharmacy.
For the next 30 minutes or so, Montoya heard sporadic bursts of gunfire throughout the store.
At about 3 pm, after talking to his parents and boyfriend, a policeman spoke over the loudspeaker.
“This is the Boulder Police Department. The entire building is surrounded. I need you to surrender now, ”said the officer.
That was when Alissa, who seemed to be outside the pharmacy, which is in front of the supermarket, shouted that he was surrendering.
About twenty minutes later, after the police again asked the sniper to surrender over the loudspeaker, authorities entered the store, Montoya said, and instructed the sniper to keep his hands above his head.
Alissa was later seen in aerial footage being escorted by the police in the shirtless parking lot.
