Tag Archives: shooting suspect

Boulder shooting suspect held without bail while he undergoes mental health assessment

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) – A judge in Boulder, Colorado, on Thursday ordered a 21-year-old man accused of fatally shooting 10 people at a supermarket to be held without bail while he undergoes a mental health assessment requested by his lawyers.

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa faces 10 counts of murder and an attempted murder charge stemming from the rampage on Monday at King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, some 28 miles (45 km) northwest of Denver.

Appearing at a hearing in Boulder County court, Alissa affirmed that he understood his rights under the law and understood that he would be held without bail, as ordered by Judge Thomas Mulvahill.

Prosecutors may file additional charges against Alissa in the coming weeks, District Attorney Michael Dougherty told the judge.

Defense lawyers for Alissa requested that the suspect undergo a full mental health assessment, which would likely push back his preliminary court hearing by a couple of months. Alissa waived his right to a preliminary hearing within 35 days to allow time for that assessment.

“We cannot do anything until we are able to fully assess Mr. Alissa’s mental illness,” said Kathryn Herold, a defense attorney for Alissa. Herold’s previous clients include a Colorado man who pleaded guilty to murdering his pregnant wife and two young daughters in 2018.

Another public defender representing Alissa, Daniel King, defended the gunman who killed 12 people in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012.

The bloodshed at King Soopers was the nation’s second mass shooting in less than a week, after a gunman fatally shot eight people at three Atlanta-area day spas on March 16.

The two attacks have reignited a national debate over gun rights and prompted President Joe Biden to call for new legislation from Congress. A bill intended to impose stricter background checks and ban certain types of semi-automatic rifles has stalled amid Republican opposition.

On Monday afternoon, Alissa arrived at the grocery store carrying a handgun and wearing a tactical vest, according to an affidavit. Six days earlier, he had purchased a Ruger AR-556 pistol, a weapon that resembles a semi-automatic rifle, the affidavit said.

The supermarket, still a closed-off crime scene, has turned into a memorial site, with people leaving flowers, candles and condolence messages outside. Boulder Mayor Sam Weaver told CNN on Thursday that the city was looking into creating a more permanent memorial nearby.

Among the victims were store employees, a grandfather-to-be and a Boulder policeman who was first on the scene. The attacks terrorized the community and felt all too familiar in a state that has experienced some of the most shocking episodes of gun violence in U.S. history.

Darcey Lopez, a King Soopers employee who hid in a cabinet beneath the cheese-wrapping station in the store when the gunman opened fire on Monday, is still reeling from the horror she lived through.

“I still hear the gunshots in the store – it’s just something that kept playing over and over in my mind for about the first 24 hours. Now it’s at night. It’s really bad at night,” Lopez said.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman, Gabriella Borter, Maria Caspani, Sharon Bernstein, Nathan Layne and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Saudi national suspected in shooting incident at U.S. Navy base in Florida

(Reuters) – The suspected shooter involved in a deadly incident on Friday at a major U.S. Navy base in Florida was believed to be a Saudi national in the United States for training, two U.S. defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Four people including the shooter were killed in the episode at Naval Air Station Pensacola, the Navy and local sheriff’s office said, the second deadly shooting at a U.S. military installation this week.

The first reports of an “active shooter” on the base came through to the Escambia County sheriff’s office at about 6:51 a.m., officials said.

A few minutes later, a sheriff’s deputy fatally shot the shooter in a classroom on the base, Sheriff David Morgan said at a news conference on Friday morning.

“Walking through the crime scene was like being on the set of a movie,” Morgan said. He declined to share any details about the suspected shooter’s identity.

The two law enforcement officials, who were not authorized to speak on the record about the investigation, said the suspected shooter was on the base for training but said they could provide no additional information.

Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to questions.

Two sheriff’s deputies were injured, one shot in the arm, the other in the knee, but both were expected to survive, officials said at the news conference.

Eight people were taken to Baptist Hospital for treatment, hospital spokeswoman Kathy Bowers said.

Sheriff’s officials said one of the three victims died after being taken to the hospital, but it was unclear whether that victim was one of the eight who arrived at Baptist. Bowers declined to say.

While military bases house the nation’s most powerful armaments, military personnel normally are restricted from carrying weapons on base unless they are part of their daily duties. Nonetheless U.S. military bases have seen deadly mass shootings before, including one in Ford Hood, Texas, in 2009 that left 13 dead and one at the Washington Navy Yard in 2013 that killed 12.

U.S. President Donald Trump had been briefed and was monitoring the situation, a White House spokesman said.

On Wednesday, a sailor shot three civilians at the historic Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii, killing two of them before taking his own life.

The Pensacola base, which is near Florida’s border with Alabama, is a major training site for the Navy and home to its aerobatic flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels. The base employs more than about 16,000 military and 7,400 civilian personnel, according to the base’s website.

Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson said at the news conference that the base is “an incredibly important part of our community.”

“We’re a military town,” he said. “Our hearts and prayers are connected to all of those that serve us every day.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Maria Caspani in New York and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Alison Williams and Steve Orlofsky)