The 21-year-old suspect arrested in a shooting rampage inside a Colorado grocery store was described by the family as anti-social and paranoid and had purchased an assault weapon just six days before police say he shot and killed ten people.
Police say the suspect, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, began his attack Monday around 2:30 p.m. local time at King Soopers in Boulder, Colo., which is about 25 miles northwest of Denver and home to the University of Colorado. He took ten lives, among them Officer Eric Talley, 51, a father of seven who was the first to respond to the grocery store.
The victims have been identified as Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Eric Talley, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; Jody Waters, 65.
The assault came just days after a gunman killed eight people at three spas in and around Atlanta. It is the seventh mass killing this year in the U.S., according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA TODAY and Northeastern University.
Alissa, who is from the Denver suburb of Arvada, was booked into the county jail Tuesday on murder charges after being treated at a hospital. He was due to make a first court appearance Thursday.
When Alissa surrendered to police, he was found with a green tactical vest and two firearms — an AR-15 style assault weapon and a semi-automatic handgun, authorities wrote in an arrest affidavit.
Boulder Police say in the document Alissa purchased one of the guns, a Ruger AR-556 pistol, which is designed to operate like a rifle, on March 16 — six days before the shooting.
The shooting came ten days after a judge blocked a ban on assault rifles passed by Boulder’s city in 2018. That ordinance and other banning large-capacity magazines came after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead.
