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| Firefighters salute an ambulance carrying the body of Officer Talley as it left the King Soopers grocery store Monday evening. Associated Press |
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Syrian-born gunman Ahmad Alissa, 21, is charged with ten counts of murder at Boulder grocery store where victims were getting vaccine shots
Daily Mail
March 23, 2021
Area: Denver
Ahmad Alissa, the 21-year-old gunman responsible for a mass shooting at a Colorado grocery store on Monday, asked police if he could speak with his mother after surrendering, having stripped off and laid down his down his Ruger SR-556 rifle, handgun and tactical vest in the supermarket's aisles.
Alissa, a high school wrestler who has been described by his family as 'mentally ill', was born in Syria and moved to the US when he was three. He now lives in Arvada, Colorado, around 30 miles from the grocery store he targeted.
At 2.40pm on Monday, he opened fire on the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, killing ten people. He was taken into custody at 3.28pm and was transported to the hospital to be treated for a leg wound. He has since been released from the hospital and is now in Boulder County Jail.
In Facebook posts over the last 18 months, he complained about not having a girlfriend and ranted about President Trump.
His brother confirmed he was the shooter in an interview with The Daily Beast on Tuesday, saying he was 'paranoid' and 'very antisocial'. The brother said he believes he is mentally ill, and described how he was convinced people were 'after him' in high school.
His arrest affidavit, which was released on Tuesday morning, reveals that after shooting a man once in the grocery store parking lot, Alissa then approached him while he was still laying on the ground and shot him again, repeatedly.
Witnesses described Alissa - who is 200lbs and 5ft 6 - as 'fat' and said he was wearing a green tactical vest. When police arrested him, he'd removed the vest, his top and his shoes, and was wearing shorts. He was shot once in the right leg in a standoff with police.
Alissa's sister-in-law told police she had seen him playing with a 'machine gun' gun in the days before the shooting but that she didn't suspect anything. He bought a Ruger AR- 556 pistol exactly a week ago on March 16, 2021 on March 16.
Monday's shooting in Colorado is the seventh mass shooting in the country and comes just a week after a gunman killed eight people at three massage spas in Georgia. On Tuesday, President Biden gave an address to the nation about the shooting. He said he would not 'speculate' on the shooter's motive but used the shooting to call for a ban on assault weapons across the country.
'Less than a week after the murders of eight people, while a flag was still flying half staff, another American city has been scarred by trauma.
'While we're still waiting for more information.
'I don't need to wait another minute to take common sense steps that will save lives.
'We can ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines in this country.
'We should do it again. The Senate should immediately pass the house bills that closed loopholes in the background system.
'This is not and should not be a partisan issue.
'We have to act. We should also ban assault weapons in the process.
'I'll have much more to say... but I want to be clear: those poor folks who died left behind families. We can save lives.'
It's unclear why he unleashed terror on the supermarket or whether the gun he was using - described by witnesses as an AR-15 - was legally purchased.
In his arrest affidavit, cops described how he played with the weapon in front of family.
'Alissa was seen playing with a gun she thought looked like a "machine gun" about 2 days ago. She did not believe the gun looked like the rifles she has seen in old Western movies, and that she thought it looked like a "machine gun."
'Alissa had been talking about having a bullet stuck in the gun and was playing with the gun. [Redacted] and [redacted] were upset with Alissa for playing with the gun in the house and took the gun,' it read.
Police have still not yet confirmed that he was the man who was seen being led out of the grocery store in handcuffs, bleeding from the leg, but they did say he was shot in the leg in a standoff with police.
The victims have been identified as; Denny Strong, 20, Neven Stanisic, 23, Rikki Olds, 25, Suzanne Fountain, 59, Terri Licher, 51, Eric Talley, 51, Kevin Mahoney, 61, Lynn Murray, 62, and Jodie Waters, 65.
Talley was a cop who recently changed jobs to work more away from the front-line. He was also a father-of-seven.
Leiker had worked at the grocery store for 30 years. She was dating a colleague who survived the shooting.
Officials revealed at a press conference on Tuesday morning that some of the victims were at the store to get their COVID-19 vaccine.
Alissa is currently in the hospital but he is expected to be discharged later today to be booked into Boulder County Jail.
Witnesses described him shooting two of three shots then stopping calmly before opening fire again. One survivor said he was not 'spraying'.
Harrowing 911 calls reveal how officers feared he was wearing a tactical vest.
They told each other to take 'head shots only' to bring him down.
At a press conference on Tuesday morning, officials said they still did not know what the shooter's motive was.
'We will make sure that the suspect is held accountable for what he did to them yesterday,' Boulder District Attorney Michael Douhgerty said.
He was eventually shot in the leg in a standoff with the cops.
The victims range in age from 20 and 65.
Among them is a police officer, one of the first on the scene, people who were grocery shopping and people who were at the store to get their COVID vaccines.
When police arrived at the scene, they found two victims' bodies in the parking lot.
Once inside, they saw another.
Authorities were heard over a loudspeaker telling Alissa to surrender before he emerged from the store in handcuffs.
Shortly after learning of the incident, Colorado Gov Jared Polis said in a statement: 'My heart is breaking as we watch this unspeakable event unfold in our Boulder community.
'We are making every public safety resource available to assist the Boulder County Sheriff's Department as they work to secure the store.
'I'm incredibly grateful to the brave men and women who have responded to the scene to help the victims of this senseless tragedy.'
Alissa's brother told The Beast about an incident when he was in high school and feared he was going to be killed.
'[He believed] he was being chased, someone is behind him, someone is looking for him.
'When he was having lunch with my sister in a restaurant, he said, "People are in the parking lot, they are looking for me."
'She went out, and there was no one. We didn’t know what was going on in his head,' he said.
Boulder Mayor Sam Weaver said that 'words can do no justice to the tragedy that has unfolded this afternoon'.
'Our community will soon grieve our losses, and begin our healing.
Our brave police officers and first responders have the gratitude of our entire city.'
White House press secretary Jen Psaki shared Monday evening that President Joe Biden 'has been briefed on the shooting in Colorado and he will be kept up to date by his team as there are additional developments'.
In Brussels, Biden's secretary of state Antony Blinken began remarks at NATO headquarters by offering his 'deepest condolences to the loved ones of those who were killed, including a law enforcement officer'.
Former Rep Gabby Giffords also released a statement about the shooting on Monday, saying: 'This is an especially personal tragedy for me.
'I survived a shooting at a grocery store, in a tragedy that devastated my beloved community of Tucson.
'It's been 10 years, and countless American communities have had to face something similar.
'This is not normal, and it doesn't have to be this way. It's beyond time for our leaders to take action.'
Giffords said that every victim 'had hopes, dreams and people who loved them. They are no longer with us because of preventable tragedies'.
Colorado previously suffered two of the most infamous mass shootings in US history - massacres that prompted nationwide soul-searching but did not result in major changes to gun ownership laws.
In 1999, two boys shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing themselves.
Then in 2012, a heavily armed man stormed a movie theater in Aurora, murdering 12.
The gunman is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
The city of Boulder imposed a ban on 'assault-style weapons' and large-capacity gun magazines in the wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting in 2018.
But a judge last week blocked that ban, local media reported, in a decision hailed by the NRA.
In a statement, the King Soopers chain offered 'thoughts, prayers and support to our associates, customers, and the first responders who so bravely responded to this tragic situation'.
'We will continue to cooperate with local law enforcement and our store will remain closed during the police investigation,' the statement reads.
Harrowing emergency radio obtained by the Colorado Sun revealed some of the initial moments as Officer Talley arrived to the scene.
'Shooter is inside!' an officer frantically called out from inside the store. 'He just shot at us twice.'
A few seconds later someone says over the radio: 'Officer down inside the building!'
As the incident unfolded, officers from the Boulder Police Department warned locals to 'avoid the area'.
One person was taken from the shooting scene to Foothills Hospital in Boulder, said Rich Sheehan, spokesman for Boulder Community Health, which operates the hospital.
However, they did not release the condition of the patient.
One video of the incident from YouTube shows two victims lying on the ground in the parking lot of the store.
At least one victim is seen lying on the floor inside the store just moments before more gunshots are heard. Local reports say one victim is a police officer.
Television helicopter video showed law enforcement vehicles and officers massing outside, including SWAT teams, and at least three helicopters on the roof of the store in Boulder, about 25 miles northwest of Denver.
Ryan Borowski told CNN that he was in the store when the shooter opened fire.
'We told employees what was going on so everybody helped each other and we just ran to safety as quickly as we could,' Borowski said.
'I didn't see the shooter. I saw terrified faces running towards me and that's when I turned and ran the other direction.
Borowski said that Boulder 'feels like the safest spot in America and I just nearly got killed for getting a soda, you know, and a bag of chips. Doesn't feel good'.
A man who said he was shopping at the store told KCNC-TV that he heard 'one loud bang, thought somebody just dropped something an employee or something, and then another, and then by the third one, everybody was running'.
He said they ran to the back of the store, found the employee area and workers told them how to escape. He said they walked single file, with their arms on the backs of those in front of them.
Another man told KCNC said his family was inside the pharmacy at King Soopers to get a Covid-19 vaccine when the shooter entered the building.
'I got the call from my daughter and my grandchildren that my son-in-law walked into the pharmacy for him to get a Covid-19 shot and the shooter came in, shot the woman in front of them,' the man told the station.
He said his family then hid in a closet for an hour before they were rescued.
'They were texting, hiding in the coat closet. Turned their phone off and were going 'we're hiding, we're okay' you know, 'don't call' you know the phone would ring and give away their position,' he added.
Law enforcement SWAT teams from Jefferson County and Boulder were dispatched to the market in the southern part of the city of Boulder.
The FBI is also on the scene.
'At the request of the Boulder Police Department, FBI Denver personnel are assisting with an investigation into an active shooter situation at a King Soopers grocery store on Table Mesa Drive in Boulder,' the FBI's Denver branch tweeted.
One man told KDVR that he was 'terrified' and 'in shock initially when we realized what was happening'.
The man said he was on his to pick up coffee from King Soopers when the shooting started.
Through tears, he noted that 'people my age, my generation are used to this'.
A person who answered the telephone at a nearby sandwich shop said he and his employees were locked down in the back of the store and all were safe.
Someone who answered the phone at nail studio next door said she and her colleagues were safe. Neither had details on what happened at the market across the street.
The attack was the seventh mass killing this year in the US, following the March 16 shooting that left eight people dead at three Atlanta-area massage businesses, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.
It follows a lull in mass killings during the pandemic in 2020, which had the smallest number of such attacks in more than a decade, according to the database, which tracks mass killings defined as four or more dead, not including the shooter.
Police in Atlanta are still investigating suspected gunman Robert Aaron Long's motive in connection with the shooting on Tuesday. The FBI is assisting with the investigation.
All eight deceased victims were identified as: Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Soon C. Park, 44; Hyun J. Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69, and 63-year-old Yong Yue.
Long, a 21-year-old Atlanta-area resident who is white, told police that sexual frustration led him to commit the violence.
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