Trial expected to focus on competence of shooter in 2021 Colorado supermarket massacre

DENVER — A man sitting in his van after fixing a coffee machine at a supermarket in the college town of Boulder was the first person killed. In just over a minute, nine others were killed in a barrage of gunfire inside and outside the store in 2021, as the gunman targeted and chased people as they moved.

Survivors fled to the back of the store to escape the bullets. For more than an hour, others hid in aisles, cash registers and desks.

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, then 21, turned himself in after being shot in the leg by a police officer inside the store. He emerged wearing only his underwear and repeatedly asked officers to call his mother. His lawyers do not dispute that he was the shooter.

But his motives for carrying out the mass shooting remain unclear as his trial is set to begin this week.

The closest thing to a possible motive revealed so far came when a mental health evaluator testified at a competency hearing last year that Alissa said he had bought guns to commit a mass shooting and suggested he wanted police to kill him.

Robert Olds, whose 25-year-old niece, Rikki Olds, was Alissa’s manager, who was shot at close range near the entrance, plans to sit in his usual front-row seat for the duration of the trial. Although he sometimes wished Alissa had been killed, he always hoped he would one day learn why his niece, known for her sense of humor and outgoing personality, and the others were targeted. He has lost hope about that, but he is certain Alissa knew what he was doing.

“I hope he goes to prison for the rest of his life, and then he serves his real sentence when he has to meet God and answer for the murder of 10 people,” he said.

The trial is expected to focus primarily on Alissa’s mental state at the time of the shooting. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers argue he should be acquitted because his mental illness prevented him from knowing right from wrong.

The defense argued in a court filing that his relatives said he irrationally believed he was being followed by the FBI and that he talked to himself as if he were talking to someone who wasn’t there. However, prosecutors point out that Alissa had never been treated for mental illness before and was able to work up to 60 hours a week before the shooting, which they say would not have been possible for a seriously mentally ill person.

Alissa is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, 15 counts of attempted murder and other offenses, including banning six high-capacity ammunition magazines in Colorado after previous mass shootings.

Alissa’s trial was postponed because experts repeatedly found he was unable to understand court proceedings and assist his defense. But after his condition improved after being subjected to forced suffering, Judge Ingrid Bakke ruled in October that he was mentally competent, allowing the trial to resume.

Prosecutors will have the burden of proving he was sane, trying to show that Alissa knew what he was doing and that she intended to kill people in the store.

Authorities have not explained why Alissa bypassed a King Soopers near his home in the Denver suburb of Arvada and drove about 15 miles (24 kilometers) to the chain’s store in Boulder, a city he had never visited before the shooting, according to the defense.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Alissa had researched topics such as how to move and fire an assault rifle and the most deadly types of bullets in the months leading up to the shooting. A court document said, without elaborating, that he had searched for information about the “Christ Church attacks,” an apparent reference to the live-streamed shootings by a white nationalist at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 people in March 2019.

Alissa immigrated from Syria with his family when he was a toddler. He lived with his family in Arvada, where they owned a restaurant.

Alissa’s only known trouble before the shooting was a 2018 incident in high school, when he was convicted of assaulting a classmate, according to police documents. A former classmate also told The Associated Press that Alissa was kicked off the wrestling team after yelling that he would kill everyone after a loss in a practice match.

A sister-in-law who lived in Alissa’s home told police he had been playing with what she thought was a “machine gun” two days before the shooting, before two relatives confiscated it, according to court documents.

Several of Alissa’s relatives have been named as potential defense witnesses during the trial. Potential jurors will be questioned starting Tuesday, with their opening statements expected before the end of the week.

Both sides will rely on experts to testify about his mental health, possibly including videos of their interviews with Alissa, said defense attorney Karen Steinhauser, a former prosecutor and University of Denver law professor.

If jurors don’t believe Alissa was legally insane, they could also consider whether his mental illness prevented him from acting with deliberation and intent and convict him of second-degree murder instead, she said.

A mental health evaluation by experts at the state psychiatric hospital found that Alissa was legally sane at the time of the attack, according to details provided by the defense during a court hearing this spring. The defense said the evaluators concluded that the attack would not have happened without Alissa’s untreated mental illness, which attorney Sam Dunn said was schizophrenia that included “auditory hallucinations.”

Olds said he was preparing to learn more gruesome details about the shooting, including surveillance video that had not yet been shown to the public.

But he said finally having the trial over would help him and many families finally come to terms with what they have lost, he added.

“It’s not about moving on. It’s about finding other ways to live without your loved one,” he said.