Shooting in Colorado: how the shooter prepared the crime and who his ten victims were

According to court documents, the shooter who killed ten people in a supermarket in Colorado, Ahmad Al Alivi Alyssa, acquired the weapon shortly after a judge lifted a previous ban on selling it in Boulder. Writes about it The Guardian.

Photo: Shutterstock

As it turned out, the suspect accused of opening fire in a crowded supermarket in Colorado was a 21-year-old man who allegedly bought an assault weapon less than a week before.

Ahmad Al Alivi Alyssa bought the gun on March 16, six days before the attack on the King Soopers store in Boulder, which killed 10 people, including a police officer. It is not yet known where the gun was purchased.

The shooting occurred 10 days after a judge overturned the Boulder's 2018 ban on assault rifles. The ordinance and another ban on large-capacity gun stores came after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people.

The ban lawsuit was filed quickly with the support of the National Rifle Association. The judge overturned a ruling under Colorado law, which prohibits cities from setting their own gun rules.

Alyssa, from the Denver suburb of Arwada, was sent to county jail on murder charges after being treated in a hospital. He is due to appear in court for the first time on Thursday, March 25th.

Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said investigators have not established a motive for the attack, but they believe Alissa was the only shooter.

The suspect's family told investigators that they believed Alissa was suffering from some kind of mental illness, including delusional states. Relatives described instances of Alyssa telling them that people were persecuting him, which they said could have contributed to the violence, the official, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the country since the 2019 attack on a Walmart mall in El Paso, Texas, in which a gunman killed 22 people.

On the subject: 'Antisocial paranoid': what is known about the shooter who killed 10 people in Colorado

President Joe Biden has called on Congress to tighten national gun laws.

“Ten lives have been lost and families destroyed by gun violence in Colorado,” Biden said at the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has pledged to introduce two bills passed by the House of Representatives that would require extensive background checks on gun buyers. Biden supports these measures, but they face a more difficult path to adoption in a highly divided Senate with a small Democratic majority.

According to affidavits, supermarket staff told investigators that Alissa shot a man several times outside a grocery store in Boulder before going inside. Another person was found shot to death in a car next to a car registered to the suspect's brother.

As a result of the shooting, buyers and employees began to seek shelter. Special forces officers with ballistic shields walked slowly to the store, while others led the frightened people away from the building, in which some of the windows had been shattered. Customers and employees fled through the rear loading bay to safety. The rest took refuge in nearby shops.

Numerous calls to emergency services paint the picture of a chaotic, terrifying scene.

One of the callers said the suspect opened fire from his car window. Others called and said they were hiding in a store when an armed criminal shoots at customers. Witnesses described that the shooter had black AR-15 style weapons, blue jeans, and possibly a bulletproof vest.

By the time he was taken into custody, Alissa was hit by a bullet that went through his leg, the affidavit said. He took off most of his clothes and was wearing only shorts. At the supermarket, he left a pistol, a tactical vest, a semi-automatic pistol, and his bloody clothes. After the shooting, the detectives came to Alissa's house and found his fiancee, who told them that he had been playing with a weapon that looked like a "submachine gun" about two days earlier.

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No one opened the door to a house in Arwada believed to belong to the suspect's father. A two-storey house with a three-car garage located in a relatively new mid to upper class neighborhood.

The attack marked the seventh massacre in the United States this year and came just days after the shooting that killed eight people in three massage parlors in Georgia.

What is known about the victims

Ten people were killed at the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder. Their ages range from 20 to 65 years old. Who were they? What is known about the victims two days after the shooting, says KDVR.

• Denny Stong - 20 years old. He was an employee of King Soopers and a graduate of Fairview High School. His friends say he was an active member of the Boulder Model Aircraft Society and enjoyed flying model airplanes.
• Neven Stanisic - 23 years old. According to the pastor at his church, Neven worked at King Soopers as an employee of another company. He graduated from Alameda High School. He is survived by his parents and younger sister.
• Ricky Olds is 25 years old. She was an employee of King Soopers. Relatives remember her as a cheerful, energetic and charismatic girl who tried to do her job well. Her family says Ricky tried to lock the store's doors after the shooting started in the parking lot.
• Tralona Bartkowiak is 49 years old. Tralona, ​​who went by Lonna, opened a store called UMBA in Boulder. The store is located in the very center of the city.
• Suzanne Fontaine is 59 years old. A Medicare agent, Fontaine helped people sign up for the federal health insurance program. Her passion was theater - Suzanne's performance was praised by the audience and her colleagues.
• Teri Laker is 51 years old. She worked at King Soopers for 31 years and was part of the CU Boulder Best Buddies program.
• Eric Tully is 51 years old. Was a Boulder police officer who died in the line of duty. He was the first officer to arrive at the scene of the shooting at King Soopers. Tully has been with the department since 2010. Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold called his actions "heroic." The policeman left behind seven children ranging in age from 7 to 20 years old. The family says he was a devoted father.
• Kevin Mahoney is 61 years old. His daughter wrote about him as a loving man, sharing a wedding photo of her father walking her down the aisle. A woman is expecting a child: she is sure that her father “would want me to be strong for his granddaughter.”
• Lynn Murray is 62 years old. She was shopping at King Soopers, where a friend's daughter saw her. Her husband drove to the store during the shooting and began texting his wife. When he received no answer, he was shocked. Murray was a photographer and met her husband in a photo studio. They left two children. The widower said his wife and "none of the victims would ever want you to live in fear."
• Jody Waters is 65 years old. According to her Instagram account, she was a mother of two daughters, a grandmother to a grandson, and the owner of a rescue dog. Jodi was a traveler and creative entrepreneur.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• On Monday, March 22nd, ten people, including a policeman, were killed after an armed criminal opened fire in a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.
• The fatal shooting at the King Soopers store comes less than a week after shootouts at three spas in the Atlanta area eight people died.
• The suspect in the King Soopers supermarket shooting has been identified as 21-year-old Ahmad Al Alivi Alyssa from Arwada. That's what it was known about him the day after the shooting.

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