ARVADA, Colorado – Authorities on Tuesday identified the suspect in the shooting death of ten people at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year-old with a history of violence whose brother said he was deeply upset.
Alissa, who is from Arvada, is charged with ten counts of first-degree murder for the mass shooting. He was arrested after being shot during detention.
Ali Aliwi Alissa, the suspect’s 34-year-old brother, told The Daily Beast that authorities had been searching his house all night after the shooting.
Alissa said his brother was ‘very antisocial’ and paranoid, adding that he was ‘described’ being chased in high school, 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’re looking for me. “She went out, and there was no one there. We did not know what was going on in his head, “Alissa said, admitting that he believed his brother was mentally ill.
Police said that when Alissa was arrested Monday afternoon, he had a leg injury. Footage of the scene shows him taken out of the store, shirtless and without shoes on, and with blood covering his leg. He is believed to be in a stable condition and was booked for jail time in Boulder County on Tuesday afternoon.
The suspect’s brother, Ali Aliwi Alissa, said he traveled to another King Sooper location after work on Monday to look for a third brother or sister who had an assignment and who could not be reached. He said he found the family member in custody, and that he and other family members were also detained.
Alissa’s family home sits on the edge of a quiet cul-de-sac with two-story homes and a mix of Aspens, evergreen, basketball hoops and bird feeders. Several generations of the family call this home, with solar panels on the roof and a flag staff path leading to the backyard, their home.
If the neighbors did not see the news online, they heard about 21:30 on Monday when an armada of vehicles arrived and stormed the block. “It looked like the house was surrounded by Navy SEALs,” said a 39-year-old pilot and neighbor who was in the bed next door when law enforcement officers showed up and refused to give his name.
Matt Benz, a 37-year-old investment manager who lives five doors down, wakes up with a loudspeaker asking everyone in the Alissa home to come to the front door. “It’s a quiet neighborhood with young families, so we moved here,” he told The Daily Beast.
On Tuesday morning, a woman who identified herself as an older sister answered the door of the Alissa family. She said she was on the floor and the family never suspected their brother was capable of committing this violence. “We are shocked. He’s nice, a quiet brother, ‘the 30-year-old told The Daily Beast and did not want to give her name.
On a Facebook page now removed, Alissa described herself as’ born in Syria, 1999, came to the US in 2002. I like wrestling and informative documentaries, that’s me. ‘ He also said that he was’ interested in ‘computer engineering / computer science … kickboxing’. Reports on mixed martial arts, especially jiu jitsu, dominated the page. Alissa sometimes posted about Islam, often about prayer or holidays.
He shared photos of himself in his wrestling uniform from Arvada West High, as well as wearing medals from a fighting club.
Conrad, a former wrestling team-mate of the suspect, who spoke under the condition that she be withheld from him, told The Daily Beast he was deeply surprised by the allegations, but that Alissa did have a temper.
“One thing I can tell you is that he did not lose very well,” he said. “I remember it in the struggle. He threw his head covering and would not talk to the coaches if he lost. If I remember correctly, I even pronounced one of the coaches once. ”
In one Facebook message, the suspect apparently expressed his fear that someone was pointing his phone for Islamophobic reasons.
“Yes, if these racist Islamophobic people would no longer hack my phone, I would probably have a normal life,” he posted in July 2019.
On Facebook, his politics seemed mixed through different camps. He shared an article in which he rebuked Donald Trump’s stance on immigration, but also posted on his own opposition to gay marriage and abortion.
A day after the 2019 shooting in Christchurch in New Zealand, Alissa shared a Facebook message from another user that read: ‘The Muslims at the #christchurch mosque were not the victims of a single shooter . They were the victims of the whole Islamophobia industry that they maligned. ”
Authorities did not release a motive behind the killings, saying the investigation was still in its infancy and that it was “too early to draw any conclusions at this time”.
“I can tell you that the community is safe and that we will continue to share updates while we investigate and draw conclusions as a result of the investigation,” said Michael Schneider, special agent.
According to the suspect’s brother, the motivation may not have been political.
‘[It was] not a political statement at all, it’s a mental illness, ‘Ali Aliwi Alissa told The Daily Beast. “The man used to bully a lot in high school, he was like an outgoing child, but after he went to high school and was bullied a lot, he started getting antisocial.”
According to court records, Alissa had at least one previous run-up to the law, including one arrest after she had a classmate in 2017 with a ‘cold cocking’. According to court documents first obtained by KDVR, Alissa hit a classmate in the head after he ‘made him pleasant and called him racial names weeks before. The victim suffered bruises, swelling and cuts to the head. Alissa pleaded guilty to a charge of assault in connection with the 2018 incident.
An employee at Arvada West High School told The Daily Beast that Alissa transferred half to the school during her freshman year and graduated in 2018.
The brother noted that the family has been in Colorado for almost 20 years, and that they are ‘so sorry’ for the victims.
The Boulder Police Department has also released the names of the ten people who died Monday, whose ages range from 65 to 20.
These include Denny Stong (20); Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowika, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker (51); Boulder Police Officer Eric Talley (51); Kevin Mahoney (61); Lynn Murray (62); Jody Waters, 65.
“I wish I could stand here and promise that pain will heal quickly,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told a news conference Tuesday. ‘But it will not … At such times it is difficult to see the light shining through the darkness. ”
“We have not only lost ten lives, it’s a real horror,” he added.
Lori Olds, Ricki Olds’ aunt, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday: “We lost our beloved Rikki Olds to the monster that shot up the royal soups in Boulder CO, may his rotten ass fry and burn in hell.”
Reports reported Monday just before 3 p.m. local time in the store in Table Mesa Drive. Several witnesses described terrifying scenes in the supermarket, while customers and workers ran to cover after hearing a series of loud bangs or the attacker seeing people fall down.
Sarah Moonshadow, a 42-year-old resident of south Boulder, was buying strawberries with her 21-year-old son when gunfire erupted.
“He fired right at us. I did not look. I just ran, “she told The Daily Beast on Monday.
Another witness told The Denver Post the gunman “did not say shit” before he started firing. “He just came in and started shooting,” the witness said. After the gunman fired a few shots, he was silent, and then released a few more shots. He did not spray, “said a third witness.
The events in Boulder were the second major mass shooting in a week, a few days after an armed man shot up three massage parlors in the Atlanta metro area and killed eight people, including six Asian women.
Colorado was also the scene of the worst mass shooting in the country after the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999 in which 13 people were killed. In 2012, an attack at an Aurora movie theater killed 12 people.