Boulder Shooting Suspect Charged With 10 Counts of Murder

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year-old man from a Denver suburb, was charged Tuesday with the killing of 10 people at a grocery store in Colorado. Officials have not yet indicated a motive.

“The suspect has been identified as Ahmad Alissa, 21, of Arvada. He has been charged with 10 counts of murder in the first degree, and will be shortly transported to the Boulder County jail.” “Families that are grieving today woke up today without their loved ones, including an officer who bravely died in the line of duty protecting this community, Officer Talley. His service and his sacrifice will never be forgotten.” “There was this exchange of gunfire, which suspect was shot. No other officers were injured. The suspect was taken into custody at 3:28 p.m. He was transported to the hospital for treatment, now in stable condition.” “Our objective is to conduct a thorough and meticulous investigation. The F.B.I. is involved because the resources we can bring to bear to support our law enforcement partners and the investigation. At this time, we are supporting evidence collection. We are supporting processing the crime scene. We are conducting interviews and we are providing analytical support as we exploit all the evidence that is collected.” “The eyes of the nation are on Boulder. The eyes of the nation are on Colorado. And every level of law enforcement, federal, state and local, is working together to make sure that we can bring justice.”00:002:092:09Boulder Shooting Suspect Charged With 10 Counts of MurderAhmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year-old man from a Denver suburb, was charged Tuesday with the killing of 10 people at a grocery store in Colorado. Officials have not yet indicated a motive.CreditCredit…Eliza Earle for The New York Times

Investigators on Tuesday were trying to determine what motivated a 21-year-old man, charged in the shooting at a Boulder, Colo., grocery store, to take the lives of 10 people, in the second mass shooting in the United States in less than a week.

The gunman was armed with both a military-style semiautomatic rifle and a pistol when he walked into the King Soopers store on Monday and opened fire, officials said. They identified the suspect who was arrested at the scene as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, who lived in Arvada, a nearby suburb; he was charged on Tuesday with 10 counts of first-degree murder, which in Colorado carries a penalty of life imprisonment without parole.

A police affidavit made public on Tuesday said that last week he bought a Ruger AR-556 semiautomatic pistol — essentially a shortened version of an AR-15 style rifle, which fires the same small-caliber, high-velocity ammunition, first developed for battlefield use. Statements from the police and the charging documents did not make fully clear what models of weapons he used in the attack, and whether the Ruger was one of them.

The suspect’s identity was previously known to the F.B.I. because he was linked to another individual under investigation by the bureau, according to law enforcement officials.

When he was a senior at Arvada West High School, Mr. Alissa was convicted in 2018 of misdemeanor assault against another student in a classroom, and told the police at the time that it was in retaliation for insults and ethnic taunts. Fellow students recall him as having a fierce temper that would flare in response to setbacks or slights.

Among the victims of the massacre on Monday was Officer Eric Talley, 51, with the Boulder Police Department, who had responded to a “barrage” of 911 calls about the shooting, Chief Maris Herold said.

The authorities identified the nine additional victims as Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.

Chief Herold said at a news conference that police officers had run into the King Soopers grocery store within minutes of the shooting and had shot at the suspect. No other officers were injured during the response, she said. She said Mr. Alissa was taken to a hospital for treatment of a leg injury

Court records show he was born in Syria in 1999, as did a Facebook page that appeared to belong to the suspect, giving his name as Ahmad Al Issa; the page was taken down within an hour of his name being released by the authorities. Michael Dougherty, the Boulder County district attorney, said the suspect had “lived most of his life in the United States.”

Mr. Alissa was a wrestler in high school and the Facebook page listed wrestling and kickboxing as being among his interests, and many of the posts were about martial arts. One, in 2019, said simply, “#NeedAGirlfriend.”

The shooting came just six days after another gunman’s deadly shooting spree at massage parlors in the Atlanta area.

“Flags had barely been raised back to full mast after the tragic shooting in Atlanta that claimed eight lives, and now a tragedy here, close to home, at a grocery store that could be any of our neighborhood grocery stores,” Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, said at the news conference.