The suspect accused of breaking into a crowded Colorado supermarket was a 21-year-old man who allegedly purchased an assault weapon less than a week earlier.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa bought the weapon on March 16, six days before the attack on a King Soopers store in Boulder in which ten people, including a police officer, were killed, according to an arrest warrant. It was not immediately known where the gun was purchased.
The shooting took place ten days after a judge blocked a 2018 assault rifle by the city of Boulder. The ordinance and another ban on high-capacity magazines come after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people.
A lawsuit challenging the ban was quickly filed by the National Rifle Association. The judge overturned the ordinance under a Colorado law that barred cities from drafting their own rules on guns.
Alissa, who is from the suburb of Arvada in Denver, was booked into the country’s jail on Tuesday on a charge of murder after being treated in a hospital. He would appear in court for the first time on Thursday.
Investigators have not determined a motive for the attack on Monday, but they believe Alissa was the sole shooter, Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty said.
A law enforcement official who was briefed on the shooting incident said the suspect’s family told investigators they believe Alissa has some kind of mental illness, including delusions. Family members described times when Alissa told them that people were chasing or chasing him, which they said may have contributed to the violence, the official said, who wished to remain anonymous.
The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the country since an attack on Walmart in El Paso, Texas in 2019, in which a gunman killed 22 people in a riot aimed at Mexicans, according to police.
In Washington, President Joe Biden called on Congress to tighten the country’s gun laws.
“Ten lives have been lost, and more families have been crushed by gun violence in the state of Colorado,” Biden said in the White House.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised to submit two bills from the House to require extensive background checks on arms buyers. Biden supports the measures, but they stare a tighter way to pass in a narrowly divided Senate with a slim Democratic majority.
Supermarket employees told investigators that Alissa shot a man outside the Boulder grocery store several times before entering, according to the statement. Another person was shot in a vehicle next to a car registered with the suspect’s brother.
The shooting left buyers and employees scrambling to get coverage. SWAT officers carrying ballistic shields slowly approached the store while other frightened people escorted away from the building, causing splashes from the windows. Customers and employees fled through a loading bin to safety. Others took refuge in nearby shops.
According to the affidavit, several 911 calls paint a picture of a chaotic, frightening scene.
According to a caller, the suspect opened fire at the window of his vehicle. Others called to say they were hiding in the store while the gunman shot at customers. Witnesses described the shooter as wearing a black AR-15 rifle and blue jeans and perhaps an armor.
By the time he was in custody, Alissa had been hit by a bullet moving through his leg, the statement said. He took off most of his clothes and was only wearing shorts. Inside the store, he left behind the gun, a tactical vest, a semi-automatic pistol and his bloodied clothes, the statement said.
After the shooting, detectives went to Alissa’s home and found his sister-in-law, who told them he had played with a weapon that she said looked like a “machine gun” about two days earlier, the document reads.
No one answered the door of the Arvada house allegedly owned by the suspect’s father. The two-storey house and a three-car garage are located in a relatively new middle and upper class neighborhood.
Monday’s attack was the seventh massacre this year in the US and took place a few days after the shooting in which eight people were killed at three massage establishments in Georgia.