Boulder shooting: Killer described as ‘loner’ who lived in basement of his family’s home

Boulder grocery store shooter Ahmad Alissa is a ‘loner’ who has never had a girlfriend and lives in his family’s basement, his brother-in-law has claimed. 

Ahmad Alissa, 21, is in custody in Boulder on ten counts of murder. He will make his first court appearance on Thursday. 

On Monday, he opened fire on the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, murdering ten people before handing himself in. 

It’s unclear what his motive is but a picture of the gunman has emerged through descriptions from friends, family and former high school classmates. 

They describe him as ‘paranoid’, ‘anti-social’, ‘violent’ and some say he has the temper ‘of a demon’. 

Social media posts from his Facebook page also indicate his frame of mind.

He ranted about Islamophobes and against President Trump. 

Now, his brother-in-law is speaking out to reveal more details of his introverted lifestyle.

‘He was a loner, just sitting to the side, not with us. It was strange. He lived with his family and lived in the basement at their home. He works with his family, his brothers, at their restaurant. There was never a girlfriend and not many friends.

‘He has a reputation for being stupid, not smart. He was not like a proper Muslim, I don’t know what kind of Muslim he was. He did not go to the mosque I go to,’ his brother-in-law Usame Almusa told The Sun. 

He added that no one in the family knows what his motive was and that his distraught father has ‘almost died’ from all the crying he has done this week. 

‘I do not know what happened with this guy to make him do this. We just don’t know what made him go so crazy. I wish we knew. This is terrible for the family, for the victims, for America. His father has almost died from the crying.

‘His mother, Hadija, his sisters, my wife, his brothers, are all crying.’  He also worked at The Sultan Grill, which is owned by his parents.  

Investigators were seen searching the $800,000 Colorado home of the King Soopers gunman on Tuesday as more of his Facebook rants are revealed and a police report shows that he ‘beat up a teen bully who called him a terrorist’ in 2017. 

Agents of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrived at the residence of Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, who was named by police earlier in the day as the man who shot dead 10 people at the Boulder grocery store on Monday afternoon. The grocery store is about 30 miles from his Arvada home. 

Alissa was pictured leaving the store handcuffed and bloody following the rampage and was booked into the Boulder County Jail today after being released from hospital. 

Neighbors said police arrived at the five-bedroom family home at around 3pm and left the property an hour and a half later. 

DailyMail.com photos show CBI investigators and police touring the quiet suburban street, and speaking to neighbors. 

A woman at the family home – thought to be Alissa’s mother – threatened to call the police on a DailyMail.com reporter and said the family are not planning to speak to the media. 

She said: ‘We are not talking to anyone. You are not allowed to stand next to my house. If you don’t leave, I will call 911.’ 

Meanwhile, more social media posts from the gunman’s Facebook page were released on Tuesday. 

In Facebook posts over the last two years, he complained about not having a girlfriend, ranted about President Trump and talked about his Islamic faith. 

He also ranted online about ‘racist islamophobes’ hacking his phone. 

‘Just curious what are the laws about phone privacy because I believe my old school (a west) was hacking my phone. Anyone know if I can do anything through the law?’ Alissa wrote on March 18, 2019, appearing to refer to Arvada West High School.

Another post dated for March 16, 2019, reads: ‘The Muslims at the #christchurch mosque were not the victims of a single shooter. They were the victims of the entire Islamophobia industry that vilified them.’ 

The post appears to reference the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shootings of 2019, when a single gunman killed 51 people after he opened fire on two separate mosques.

Scroll down for video  

Alissa, a high school wrestler who has been described by his family as ‘mentally ill’, was born in Syria and moved to the US with his family when he was three. 

According to a police report, obtained by the Daily Beast, in 2017, Alissa, then 17, ‘blacked out’ and violently assaulted a classmate who had called him a terrorist.

The report says that Alissa attacked another student, Alex Kimose, who he said had been bullying him. 

Kimose was reportedly left with a ‘red and swollen’ face and his eye partially closed. 

The report claims that Kimose was ‘crying and throwing up’ when his father arrived to the school and threatened to press charges. 

Alissa said he could not take being bullied anymore so he ‘blacked out and rushed him’.

At the time, Alissa claimed that Kimose called him ‘racist names, called him a terrorist, and even took a video of him and put it on Snapchat’.

Alissa was charged with a misdemeanor for the attack, according to the Daily Beast. 

The Sun on Wednesday cited anonymous FBI sources who said he was having ‘issues with family’. 

During Monday’s rampage, authorities said Alissa opened fire at 2.40pm on the King Soopers grocery store.

He was taken into custody at 3.28pm and was transported to the hospital to be treated for a leg wound. Alissa asked if he could speak with his mother after surrendering to police on Monday, having stripped off and laid down his down his Ruger AR-556 rifle, handgun and tactical vest in the supermarket’s aisles.

He has since been released from the hospital and is now in Boulder County Jail. 

Police have not yet confirmed his motive. He has been charged with ten counts of murder. 

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that he was known to the FBI because he was linked to another person who has been under investigation for something else. They didn’t give any more details. 

His brother confirmed he was the shooter in an interview with The Daily Beast on Tuesday, saying he was  ‘paranoid’ and ‘very antisocial’. 

He insisted that the shooting was not politically-motivated and said:'[It was] not at all a political statement, it’s mental illness.  

‘The guy used to get bullied a lot in high school, he was like an outgoing kid but after he went to high school and got bullied a lot, he started becoming anti-social,’ he said. 

Another told The Denver Post that Alissa was ‘violent’, ‘scary to be around’ and once threatened to kill teammates on his wrestling team. 

‘He was kind of scary to be around. His senior year, during the wrestle-offs to see who makes varsity, he actually lost his match and quit the team and yelled out in the wrestling room that he was, like, going to kill everybody. 

‘Nobody believed him. We were just all kind of freaked out by it, but nobody did anything about it,’ Dayton Marvel said. Another, Angel Hernandez, recalled an incident where another wrestler teased him for losing and he just ‘started punching him’. 

Alissa has been arrested at least once before including in 2017 when he punched someone who had made fun of his race. 

In a July 2019 Facebook post, he ranted: ‘Yeah if these racist Islamophobic people would stop hacking my phone and let me have a normal life I probably could.’ 

Hernandez, the fellow wrestler, added: ‘He would talk about him being Muslim and how if anybody tried anything, he would file a hate crime and say they were making it up. 

‘It was a crazy deal. I just know he was a pretty cool kid until something made him mad, and then whatever made him mad, he went over the edge — way too far.

‘He was always talking about (how) people were looking at him and there was no one ever where he was pointing people out.  We always thought he was messing around with us or something.’ 

His arrest affidavit, which was released on Tuesday morning, reveals that after shooting a man once in the grocery store parking lot, Alissa then approached him while he was still laying on the ground and shot him again, repeatedly. 

Witnesses described Alissa – who is 200lbs and 5ft 6 – as ‘fat’ and said he was wearing a green tactical vest. When police arrested him, he’d removed the vest, his top and his shoes, and was wearing shorts. He was shot once in the right leg in a standoff with police. 

Alissa’s sister-in-law told police she had seen him playing with a ‘machine gun’ in the days before the shooting but that she didn’t suspect anything.

He bought a Ruger AR- 556 pistol exactly a week ago on March 16, 2021.

Monday’s shooting in Colorado is the seventh mass shooting in the country and comes just a week after a gunman killed eight people at three massage spas in Georgia. 

On Tuesday, President Biden gave an address to the nation about the shooting.

He said he would not ‘speculate’ on the shooter’s motive but used the shooting to call for a ban on assault weapons across the country. 

‘Less than a week after the murders of eight people, while a flag was still flying half staff, another American city has been scarred by trauma. 

‘While we’re still waiting for more information.

‘I don’t need to wait another minute to take common sense steps that will save lives. We can ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines in this country. We should do it again. The Senate should immediately pass the house bills that closed loopholes in the background system. 

‘This is not and should not be a partisan issue.  

‘We have to act. We should also ban assault weapons in the process. 

‘I’ll have much more to say… but I want to be clear: those poor folks who died left behind families. We can save lives.’ 

It’s unclear why he unleashed terror on the supermarket or whether the gun he was using – described by witnesses as an AR-15 – was legally purchased. 

In his arrest affidavit, cops described how he played with the weapon in front of family. 

‘Alissa was seen playing with a gun she thought looked like a ‘machine gun’ about 2 days ago. She did not believe the gun looked like the rifles she has seen in old Western movies, and that she thought it looked like a ‘machine gun.’ 

‘Alissa had been talking about having a bullet stuck in the gun and was playing with the gun. 

‘{Redacted] and [redacted] were upset with Alissa for playing with the gun in the house and took the gun,’ it read. 

Police have still not yet confirmed that he was the man who was seen being led out of the grocery store in handcuffs, bleeding from the leg, but they did say he was shot in the leg in a standoff with police. 

The victims have been identified as; Denny Strong, 20, Neven Stanisic, 23, Rikki Olds, 25, Suzanne Fountain, 59,  Terri Licher, 51, Eric Talley, 51, Kevin Mahoney, 61, Lynn Murray, 62, and Jodie Waters, 65. 

Talley was a cop who recently changed jobs to work more away from the front-line. He was also a father-of-seven. 

Leiker had worked at the grocery store for 30 years. She was dating a colleague who survived the shooting. 

Officials revealed at a press conference on Tuesday morning that some of the victims were at the store to get their COVID-19 vaccine.  

Witnesses described him shooting two of three shots then stopping calmly before opening fire again. One survivor said he was not ‘spraying’. 

Harrowing 911 calls reveal how officers feared he was wearing a tactical vest. They told each other to take ‘head shots only’ to bring him down. 

A picture of the gunman is also starting to emerge as friends and family share their shock. 

His 34-year-old brother Ali told the Beast he was ‘deeply disturbed’. 

Others, including some who wrestled with him in high school, say he was a sore loser who sometimes threw tantrums if he lost. 

‘One thing I can tell you is he didn’t take losing very well. 

‘I remember that in wrestling. 

‘He would throw his headgear, wouldn’t talk to the coaches when he lost. 

‘If I remember correctly, even cussed out one of the coaches one time.’ 

At a press conference on Tuesday morning, officials said they still did not know what the shooter’s motive was.  

‘We will make sure that the suspect is held accountable for what he did to them yesterday,’ Boulder District Attorney Michael Douhgerty said. 

He was eventually shot in the leg in a standoff with the cops. 

When police arrived at the scene, they found two victims’ bodies in the parking lot. 

Once inside, they saw another.   

Authorities were heard over a loudspeaker telling Alissa to surrender before he emerged from the store in handcuffs.  

Shortly after learning of the incident, Colorado Gov Jared Polis said in a statement: ‘My heart is breaking as we watch this unspeakable event unfold in our Boulder community. 

‘We are making every public safety resource available to assist the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department as they work to secure the store. 

‘I’m incredibly grateful to the brave men and women who have responded to the scene to help the victims of this senseless tragedy.’

Alissa’s brother told The Beast about an incident when he was in high school and feared he was going to be killed. 

‘[He believed] he was being chased, someone is behind him, someone is looking for him. 

‘When he was having lunch with my sister in a restaurant, he said, ‘People are in the parking lot, they are looking for me.’

‘She went out, and there was no one. We didn’t know what was going on in his head,’ he said. 

Boulder Mayor Sam Weaver said that ‘words can do no justice to the tragedy that has unfolded this afternoon’. 

‘Our community will soon grieve our losses, and begin our healing.

Our brave police officers and first responders have the gratitude of our entire city.’

White House press secretary Jen Psaki shared Monday evening that President Joe Biden ‘has been briefed on the shooting in Colorado and he will be kept up to date by his team as there are additional developments’. 

In Brussels, Biden’s secretary of state Antony Blinken began remarks at NATO headquarters by offering his ‘deepest condolences to the loved ones of those who were killed, including a law enforcement officer’.

Former Rep Gabby Giffords also released a statement about the shooting on Monday, saying: ‘This is an especially personal tragedy for me. 

‘I survived a shooting at a grocery store, in a tragedy that devastated my beloved community of Tucson.

‘It’s been 10 years, and countless American communities have had to face something similar. 

‘This is not normal, and it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s beyond time for our leaders to take action.’

Giffords said that every victim ‘had hopes, dreams and people who loved them. They are no longer with us because of preventable tragedies’.

Colorado previously suffered two of the most infamous mass shootings in US history – massacres that prompted nationwide soul-searching but did not result in major changes to gun ownership laws.

In 1999, two boys shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing themselves. 

Then in 2012, a heavily armed man stormed a movie theater in Aurora, murdering 12. 

The gunman is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The city of Boulder imposed a ban on ‘assault-style weapons’ and large-capacity gun magazines in the wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting in 2018. 

But a judge last week blocked that ban, local media reported, in a decision hailed by the NRA.  In a statement, the King Soopers chain offered ‘thoughts, prayers and support to our associates, customers, and the first responders who so bravely responded to this tragic situation’. 

‘We will continue to cooperate with local law enforcement and our store will remain closed during the police investigation,’ the statement reads. 

‘My dad, my hero, he represents all things love’: Father, 61, who walked his daughter down the aisle last summer, three grocery store workers and ex-magazine photo director are among 10 killed in Boulder grocery store massacre 

A 61-year-old father who walked his journalist daughter down the aisle last year, three store workers and a retired magazine photo director are among the 10 victims who were gunned down in the Boulder grocery store massacre.

The victims were shot dead at the King Soopers outlet in Boulder on Monday afternoon when the gunman, since identified by police as 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, opened fire.

Those killed include: Rikki Olds, 25, Teri Leiker, 51, Denny Stong, 20, Neven Stanisic, 23, Tralona Bartkowiak, 49, Suzanne Fountain, 59, Kevin Mahoney, 61, Lynn Murray, 62, and Jody Waters, 65.

Boulder Police officer Eric Talley, 51, was also among those killed after he responded to the shooting.

California-based reporter Erika Mahoney posted a touching tribute to her father Kevin as she revealed he was among the victims of the massacre.

‘I am heartbroken to announce that my Dad, my hero, Kevin Mahoney, was killed in the King Soopers shooting in my hometown of Boulder, CO,’ she wrote alongside photo of him walking her down the aisle at her wedding last year in May.

‘My dad represents all things Love. I’m so thankful he could walk me down the aisle last summer. I am now pregnant. I know he wants me to be strong for his granddaughter. Thank you to the Boulder PD for being so kind through this painful tragedy.’

Lynn Murray, a mother-of-two, was a retired New York City magazine photo director who had worked for Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Glamour before relocating to Colorado to raise her children.

Her family have revealed she was at the store at the time of the shooting to fill an Instacart order.

‘She was an amazing woman, probably the kindest person I’ve ever known,’ her husband John told the New York Times.

‘Our lives are ruined, our tomorrows are forever filled with a sorrow that is unimaginable. She was one of the greatest people you’d ever want to know: hard working, loving and compassionate, caring, went out of her way to make sure everyone else had a smile on their face.

‘I just want her to be remembered as just as this amazing, amazing comet spending 62 years flying across the sky.’

Rikki Olds, who worked at the store as an assistant front-end manager throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, had been employed there since graduating high school.

She was raised by her grandmother after her mother abandoned her and her siblings as a young child.

Olds hadn’t seen her grandmother in person until recently given the young woman was a frontline worker during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They saw each other again only after Olds’ grandmother was vaccinated.

The young woman’s family shared several tributes on social media as the grieving relatives called for the gunman to ‘burn in hell’.

‘We lost our beloved Rikki Olds to the monster who shot up the king soopers in Boulder CO yesterday may his rotten a** fry and burn in hell,’ her aunt Lori Olds said.

Teri Leiker, whose boyfriend also worked at the store but survived, had worked there for 30 years.

Leiker’s friend, Lexi Knutson, said the veteran employee loved working at the store.

‘She loved going to work and enjoyed everything about being there,’ Knutson told Reuters.

‘Her boyfriend and her had been good friends and began dating in the fall of 2019. He was working yesterday too. He is alive.’

Knuston said she believed Leiker’s job had come through a special needs work program.

Friends said Denny Stong, who was the youngest victim, was training to be a pilot. He also worked at the store where the shooting unfolded.

His Facebook profile photo has the caption: ‘I can’t stay home. I am a grocery store worker’ in reference to the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘My heart breaks. My son’s best friend, Denny Stong was killed at the Boulder King Soopers yesterday. He was 21 and was training to become a pilot,’ Laura Cole Spicer wrote in a Facebook tribute.

Tralona Bartkowiak ran a small clothing and artisan store in Boulder and had recently become engaged.

Her store mainly sold yoga and festival attire. Bartkowiak had, in recent years, regularly attended festivals like Burning Man to advertise her business.

Jody Walters, a mother-of-two and grandmother, described herself as a ‘creative entrepreneur’.

Suzanne Fountain was a licensed Medicare agent and financial counselor.