Gunman who killed 10 people at Colorado supermarket found guilty of murder | National

BOULDER, Colorado (AP) — A mentally ill man who killed 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in 2021 was convicted of murder Monday and faces up to life in prison.

The defense did not dispute that Ahmad Alissa, who suffered from schizophrenia, shot ten people, including a police officer, in the university town of Boulder. However, he pleaded not guilty because he was not mentally competent. The defense argued that he was unable to distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the attack.

There was a general silence in the courtroom when the judge read out the verdict. The judge had warned against outbursts of anger. On the victims' side of the courtroom, there were suppressed tears and cries when the murder verdicts were read out.

Alissa began shooting immediately after getting out of his car in the parking lot of a King Soopers store in March 2021. He killed most of the victims in just over a minute and surrendered after a police officer shot him in the leg.

Prosecutors had to prove Alissa was sane. They argued he did not fire randomly and proved he was competent by chasing people who were running and trying to hide from him. He twice passed a 91-year-old man who continued shopping, unaware of the shooting.

He was armed with steel-piercing bullets and illegal 30-round magazines, which prosecutors say indicates he took deliberate steps to make the attack as deadly as possible.

Several members of Alissa's family, who immigrated to the U.S. from Syria, testified that he had become withdrawn and less spoken for several years before the shooting. He later began acting paranoid and showing signs of hearing voices, and his condition worsened after he contracted COVID-19 in late 2020.

Alissa was diagnosed with schizophrenia after the attack and experts said behaviors described by relatives were consistent with the onset of the disease.

State forensic psychologists who examined Alissa concluded that he was mentally healthy at the time of the shooting. The defense was not required to present evidence in the case, nor did it present any experts who could prove Alissa's mental illness.

Although he heard voices, Alissa was not delusional, state psychologists said. They said his fear that he would be put in jail or killed by police showed that Alissa knew his actions were wrong.

Alissa repeatedly told psychologists that he heard voices, including “murder voices” immediately before the shooting. But during about six hours of questioning, Alissa failed to provide any details about the voices or say whether they said anything specific, forensic psychologist B. Thomas Gray testified.

The defense pointed out that Gray and his partner, Loandra Torres, did not have complete confidence in their determination that Alissa was sane, especially because she did not give him more information about his experiences, even though it could have helped his case. Gray and Torres also said that the voices played a role in the attack and that they did not believe it would have happened if Alissa had not been mentally ill.

Insanity is not the same as mental illness. Under Colorado law, insanity is a mental illness so severe that the person is unable to distinguish between right and wrong.

Victims' families attended the two-week trial and watched video footage from security cameras and police body cameras. Survivors testified how they escaped and, in some cases, helped others reach safety.

Prosecutors did not give a motive for the shooting. Alissa initially searched online for public places in Boulder that he could attack, including bars and restaurants. Then, the day before the shooting, he focused his research on large stores.

On the day of the attack, he drove from his home in the Denver suburb of Arvada to the first supermarket he found in Boulder. He shot three victims in the parking lot before entering the store.

An emergency room doctor said she crawled onto a shelf and hid among bags of potato chips. A pharmacist who took cover testified she heard Alissa say “This is fun” at least three times as he walked through the store firing his semi-automatic pistol, which resembled an AR-15 rifle.

Alissa's mother testified in court that she thought her son was “sick.” His father testified that he believed Alissa was possessed by a jinn or evil spirit, but did not seek treatment for his son because it would have been shameful for the family.

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