Judge in King Soopers shooting weighs comments from jury hearing suspect

As police handcuffed the half-clothed, barefoot and injured suspect following the 2021 mass shooting at a Boulder King Soopers grocery store, they bombarded him with rapid questions.

Why was he wearing only underwear? Had he shot people? Had he come alone? Where were his clothes?

“Where is the gun?” Commander Joshua Bonafede of the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office asked Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa as they stood in the store.

“It's over there,” Alissa replied, pointing to a spot where he had left his clothes, ammunition and weapons, according to body-worn camera footage shown Thursday in Boulder County District Court.

Judge Ingrid Bakke is currently considering whether jurors at his trial next month should be allowed to hear Alissa's answers to law enforcement in the chaotic moments following the March 22, 2021 mass shooting at the Table Mesa grocery store.

Alissa is accused of killing 10 people in the attack. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. That means his lawyers do not deny that he committed the mass shooting, but say he should not be held legally responsible. They say he was so mentally ill at the time of the killings that he could not distinguish between right and wrong.

After years of delays because Alissa was too mentally ill to stand trial, a multi-week trial is now scheduled for September. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys addressed several pre-trial issues during a hearing on Thursday.

Bakke is currently considering a motion by the defense to prevent the jury from hearing Alissa's statements after the attack on the grounds that Alissa was not informed of his right to remain silent before answering questions.

Prosecutors say the statements demonstrate Alissa's sense of reality and undermine defense claims that he is insane. They argued that jurors should be allowed to hear the statements because the questions addressed immediate safety concerns and officers did not have to first advise Alissa of his rights when questioning him.

As Alissa accompanied the officer out of the store, he said he wanted to go home and repeatedly demanded to call his mother. Bonafede testified Thursday that Alissa seemed eerily calm as he surrendered, and Bonafede wasn't sure if Alissa was “on something or just crazy,” as public defender Kathryn Herold put it.

Prosecutors also tried Thursday to keep jurors from learning about Alissa's long journey to becoming competent to stand trial. Competency is a different issue than insanity, where the court considers whether a defendant can currently understand the proceedings and defend himself.

The trial against Alissa, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was suspended for years because he was considered unfit to stand trial.