ARVADA, Colorado – Authorities on Tuesday identified the suspect in the deaths of 10 people at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year-old with a history of violence whose brother said he was deeply concerned.
Alissa, who is from Arvada, has been charged with 10 counts of first degree murder for the mass shooting. He was taken into custody after being shot while on arrest.
Ali Aliwi Alissa, the suspect’s 34-year-old brother, told The Daily Beast that authorities searched his home all night after the shooting.
Alissa said his brother was “very antisocial” and paranoid, adding that in high school he would describe “being chased, someone is behind him, someone is looking for him.”
‘When he was having lunch with my sister at a restaurant, he said,’ People are in the parking lot, they are looking for me. She went out and there was no one there. We didn’t know what was going on in his head, ”said Alissa, admitting that he believes his brother is mentally ill.
Police said when Alissa was taken into custody Monday afternoon, he sustained a leg injury. Footage from the scene showed him being taken from the store, shirtless and without shoes on, and with blood on his leg. He was said to be in stable condition and was booked into Boulder County Jail Tuesday afternoon.
The suspect’s brother, Ali Aliwi Alissa, said he traveled to another King Sooper location on Monday after work to look for a third sibling who had been on an errand and was unreachable. He said he found that relative in police custody, and he and more family members were also being held.
Alissa’s family home is on the edge of a quiet cul-de-sac with two-story houses and a mix of Aspens, evergreens, basketball hoops and bird feeders. Several generations of the family call this home, with solar panels on the roof and a flagstaff path leading to the backyard, their home.
If the neighbors hadn’t seen the news online, they found out something was wrong on Monday around 9:30 pm, when an armada of vehicles arrived and stormed the block. “It seemed the house was surrounded by Navy SEALs,” said a 39-year-old pilot and neighbor, who was in bed next to the door when the police arrived and declined to give his name.
Matt Benz, a 37-year-old investment manager who lives five doors down, woke up and asked everyone in the Alissa house to come to the front door. “It’s a quiet area, full of young families, which is why we moved here,” he told The Daily Beast, explaining his shock at the news.
On Tuesday morning, a woman who identified herself as an older sister opened the door of the Alissa family home. She said she was floored and that the family never suspected their brother was able to commit this act of violence. ‘We are shocked. He’s nice, a quiet brother, ”the 30-year-old told The Daily Beast, who declined to give her name.
On a now-deleted Facebook page, Alissa described herself as “born in Syria 1999, came to the US in 2002. I like wrestling and informational documentaries, that’s me.” He also said he was “interested in” computer engineering / computing … kickboxing. Posts about 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 Arvada West High wrestling uniform and fighting club medals.
Conrad, a former struggling teammate of the suspect who spoke on the condition that his last name was withheld, told The Daily Beast that he was deeply surprised by the allegations, but that Alissa was in a mood.
“One thing I can tell you is he didn’t show up that well to lose,” he said. “I remember that while wrestling. He would throw off his hat, not talk to the coaches if he lost. If I remember correctly, I even scolded one of the coaches once. “
In a Facebook post, the suspect appeared to express fears that someone was pointing his phone for Islamophobic reasons.
“Yes, if these racist Islamophobic people would stop hacking into my phone and give me a normal life, I probably could,” he wrote in July 2019.
On Facebook his politics appeared mixed in different camps. He shared an article rebuking Donald Trump’s stance on immigration, but also posted about his own opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion.
A day after the Christchurch Mosque shooting in New Zealand in 2019, Alissa had shared a Facebook post from another user stating, “The Muslims in #Christchurch Mosque were not the victims of a single gunman. They were victims of the entire Islamophobia industry that slandered them. “
Authorities have not released a motive behind the gruesome murders, saying the investigation was still in its early stages and “it is premature for us to draw any conclusions at this point.”
“I can tell you the community is safe and we will continue to share updates as we conduct our investigation and draw conclusions as a result of that investigation,” said Michael Schneider, FBI special agent.
According to the suspect’s brother, the motivation may not have been political.
[It was] not a political statement at all, it is a mental illness, ”Ali Aliwi Alissa told The Daily Beast. “The man used to be bullied a lot in high school, he was like an extrovert boy, but after he went to high school and was bullied a lot, he started to get anti-social.”
Court records show that Alissa has had at least one previous run-in with the law, including one arrest after “ cold-running ” a classmate in 2017. According to court documents first obtained by KDVR, Alissa punched a classmate in the head after having fun with him, calling him racial names weeks earlier. The victim sustained bruises, swelling and cuts to the head. Alissa pleaded guilty to assault charges in connection with the incident in 2018.
According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the court, Alissa was sentenced to two months of probation and 48 hours of community service in connection with that episode. The agency confirmed an affidavit stating that Alissa hit a classmate from Arvada West High School without warning and continued to hit him even when he was lying on the floor. An Arvada police spokesman also confirmed that Alissa has had two interactions with the local police in “recent years”, including cases involving allegations of simple assault and criminal mischief.
An Arvada West High School employee told The Daily Beast that Alissa transferred to the school halfway through his freshman year and graduated in 2018.
The brother noted that the family has lived in Colorado for nearly 20 years and that they are “so sorry” for the victims.
Boulder police have also released the names of the ten people murdered on Monday, whose ages range from 65 to 20.
They include Denny Stong, 20; Cousins 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 the pain will heal soon,” Colorado Governor Jared Polis said at a news conference on Tuesday. “But it won’t … At times like this it’s hard to see the light shining through the dark.”
“Not only have we lost ten lives, this is real horror and terror,” he added.
Lori Olds, Ricki Olds’ aunt, wrote on Facebook Tuesday: “We lost our beloved Rikki Olds to the monster that shot the king soopers in Boulder CO yesterday, may his rotten ass burn and burn in hell.”
Reports of a shooting at the store on Table Mesa Drive came in just before 3 p.m. local time on Monday, officials said. Several witnesses described scenes of terror in the supermarket as customers and workers took cover after hearing a series of loud bangs or watching the attacker take people down.
Sarah Moonshadow, a 42-year-old resident of South Boulder, was buying strawberries with her 21-year-old son when the gunfire broke out.
He shot right at us. I have not looked. I just walked out, ”she told The Daily Beast on Monday.
Another witness reported it The Denver Post the shooter “said nothing” before firing. “He just came in and started shooting,” the witness said. After the shooter “fired a few shots,” “he paused, then dropped a few more.” He wasn’t spraying, ”said a third witness.
The events in Boulder marked the second major mass shooting in a week, just days after a gunman shot three massage parlors on the Atlanta subway, killing eight people, six of them Asian women.
Colorado has also been the scene of some of the country’s worst mass shootings following the 1999 Columbine High School massacre that killed 13 people. In 2012, an attack in a cinema in Aurora killed 12 people.