The 21-year-old accused of killing 10 people in a supermarket here had a history of outbursts of anger – including a conviction for violently assaulting a schoolmate – and told relatives that he believed he was “being chased” by people who were out for school. catch it.
The day after the shooting massacre, authorities gave little clue as to what might have motivated Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, who was charged Tuesday with 10 murder charges.
The dead ranged between 20 and 65 and included a grocery packer, an Instacart buyer, an actress who became a financial advisor for the poor and a police officer who was the first to respond to reports of gunfire on Monday afternoon. King Soopers bomboneria.
“My heart aches for your loved ones,” said Governor Jared Polis.
The deaths, which occurred less than a week after the shootings in the Atlanta area that left eight dead, quickly became a catalyst for new requests for gun control.
President Biden said that Congress should not “wait another minute” to ban high-capacity ammunition carriers and assault rifles. “This is not and should not be a party issue – it is an American issue. We have to act. “
Earlier this month, a judge blocked the 2018 ban on assault rifles approved by the city of Boulder in response to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which resulted in 17 deaths.
In the arrest statement released on Tuesday, authorities said Alissa bought her high-powered weapon – a Ruger AR-556, which is considered an “economical version” of the best-known AR-15 and can fire 30 shots in less than 10 seconds – six days before the massacre. He was also armed with a semi-automatic weapon.
Alissa, who was born in Syria but grew up in Colorado and fought for Arvada West High School, where she graduated in 2018, had a reputation for behavior so erratic that some relatives believed he was mentally ill.
“When he was having lunch with my sister at a restaurant, he said, ‘People are in the parking lot, looking for me,’ ‘his 34-year-old brother Ali Aliwi Alissa told the Daily Beast. “She left and there was no one. We didn’t know what was going on in his head. ”
The deaths, said the brother, “were by no means a political statement, it is a mental illness.”
“The guy used to be bullied a lot at school. He was like an outgoing boy, but after he went to high school and suffered a lot of bullying, he started to become antisocial ”.
In 2017, police arrested Alissa after he assaulted a schoolmate, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation records obtained by The Times.
A sworn statement in the case said that Alissa attacked the boy at random, kicking him to the ground and then punching him.
The colleague, who suffered cuts and bruises to his head, “mocked him and called him racial names weeks earlier,” according to Alissa, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and was sentenced to parole and community service.
Tyson Crosby, who said his son fought Alissa in high school, described him as a “nice boy”, but that he also had fits of “anger” and “frustration”, especially if he missed a match.
Dayton Marvel, a former wrestling fellow, told the Denver Post that Alissa once, during tests for the varsity team, “actually lost the match and left the team and shouted in the fight room that he was going, like, kill everyone ”.
“Nobody believed him,” said Marvel. “We were all a little scared about it, but nobody did anything about it.”
But Keaton Hyatt, who took weight training classes with Alissa when they were schoolmates, remembers him as being kind, funny and almost always quiet.
“I never heard him threaten anyone,” he said. “I was shocked when I heard the news this morning. He adapted to everyone and had his circle of friends. “
Facebook and Instagram accounts that appeared to belong to Alissa – but were removed after her name was released – channeled her apparent frustrations.
“I’m just curious to know what the privacy laws are on the phone, because I believe it,” he posted on Facebook in early 2019. “My old school (a west) was hacking my phone. Does anyone know if I can do something by law? “
“#NeedAGirlfriend”, he posted later that year.
His Facebook profile said he was studying computer science at Denver Metropolitan State University, but the school released a statement that he “was never, nor was he ever an MSU student in Denver”.
On Monday night, people called him a mass murderer.
“We saw the face of evil,” said the governor after the police escorted Alissa, who was shirtless and wearing shorts, out of the warehouse in handcuffs, blood running down her right leg.
Authorities said he was wounded in a gunfight with the police before laying down his weapons, then was treated at a hospital before being admitted to the county jail.
The arrest statement said that Alissa lived in the suburb of Arvada, west of Denver. The police surrounded the house on Monday night and stopped a woman who was trying to get out in a truck.
The woman, who told police she was Alissa’s sister-in-law and also lived there, described an incident that occurred two days earlier.
“She was … hesitant to mention it, but said that Alissa was seen playing with a gun that she thought looked like a ‘machine gun’,” wrote a detective in the prison statement. “Alissa was talking about having a bullet stuck in the gun and was playing with the gun.”
She said that another relative was “upset with Alissa for playing with the gun inside the house and took the gun”.
Neighbors said on Tuesday that the family had moved into the five-bedroom house for the past 18 months and that several generations had resided there. Three cars were parked in the garage and the curtains closed while reporters gathered outside. Knocks on the front door went unanswered.
Steve Weber, a neighbor who moved into the subdivision 17 years ago, said he regularly saw “someone who looks like the sniper” come and go.
Weber said he wondered how this crime happened and that he lamented the victims.
Officer Eric Talley, 51, was the father of seven children. In 2013, the local newspaper published an article about Talley and two other policemen entering a drainage ditch to save a family of ducklings.
Denny Stong, 20; Rikki Olds, 25; and Teri Leiker, 51, worked at the store.
“Denny was not just a victim, but a hero who guided people out of the store through the back and led people safely before losing their lives,” wrote a childhood friend on a GoFundMe page to support Stong’s family.
Olds’ Facebook page is full of photos of Colorado’s mountains, lakes and forests. Her partner, Jordan Arthur, posted a photo of the two this week and a message: “Rikki baby, you were taken too early. I miss you so much. “
The victims who did not work at the store were Neven Stanisic, 23; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jodi Waters, 65.
Stanisic was described as a man of good manners, of Christian faith, who came from a family that fled the war in the former Yugoslavia. Bartkowiak ran Umba, a Boulder store specializing in yoga and festival clothing. Fountain was an actress and financial advisor and known among her neighbors for her vegetable garden.
Mahoney, who previously worked in hotel asset management, mourned his pregnant daughter, for whom he walked to the altar last summer for her wedding. Murray was a retired director of photography who had worked for Glamor, Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan. Waters, remembered by her friends for her stylish fashion, worked and owned boutiques at Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall.
Those who lived close to home and near the warehouse said they were already used to the violence. The Denver suburbs have become synonymous with high-profile shootings, beginning in 1999 with the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton.
Outside the King Soopers store, gun reform posters, such as “Moms Require Action”, were pasted on the fence above an impromptu flower and candle memorial for the victims.
Down the street, Lisa Hanckel was at home trying to come to terms with the violence. A yoga teacher who has lived in the neighborhood for 24 years, she frequented the warehouse and recognized several of the victims.
“I am traumatized, but I am no more traumatized than after Sandy Hook or any other shooting,” she said. “I was a classroom teacher when Columbine happened. This has been going on for a long time. What are we going to do?”
Kaleem reported from Boulder, Read from Seattle and Etehad from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Jenny Jarvie in Atlanta and special correspondent David Kelly in Boulder contributed to this report.