Colorado Murder Family saw guns days before shooting Biden plans to ban guns

Police in Boulder, Colorado, have identified 21-year-old Ahmad Alissa as the suspected gunman who killed 10 people in a grocery store shooting spree. Alissa’s motive is still a mystery. Alissa, whose family emigrated from Syria, may have been suffering from mental illness, according to his 34-year-old brother, Ali Aliwi Alissa.

Alissa had become increasingly “paranoid” around 2014, believing he was being followed and chased, according to his brother. At one point, the young man covered the camera on his computer with duct tape so he could not be seen, said the brother, who lives with Alissa.
“He always suspected someone was behind him, someone was chasing him,” Ali Alissa said.

Ten people, including a police officer, were killed on Monday when a gunman opened fire at the King Soopers supermarket. Officers arrived within minutes and shot the suspect, who was seen on video being taken into custody.

A police officer and father of seven Eric Talley who had been training as a drone operator in order to get off the front lines for his family’s sake was one of 10 people killed by a gunman at a Colorado grocery store on Monday.

Boulder police officer Eric Talley, 51, is being lauded for his heroism as the first officer to arrive at the scene due to reports of an active shooter at the King Soopers grocery store.

He served in numerous roles supporting the Boulder Police Department and the community of Boulder, and I have to tell you, the heroic action of this officer when he responded to the scene, Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold said.

In a press conference on Tuesday morning, Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold said that Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was a resident of Arvada, Colorado, and has “lived most of his life in the United States.” He is currently in hospital receiving treatment for a bullet wound to the leg and will be taken to jail once well enough.

Speaking at the same press conference, FBI agent Michael Schneider said it was still “premature to draw any conclusions” about the motive for Alissa’s rampage. Schneider added that the FBI would “make sure this suspect has a thorough trial.” Alissa has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder.

Two days before police say Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa armed himself with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle and a handgun and donned a tactical vest, he sat in his Arvada, Colorado, home fiddling with a gun.

Colorado Murder Family saw guns days before shooting Biden plans to ban guns

The sight alarmed his family. The gun didn’t look like a rifle featured in old Western movies, Alissa’s sister-in-law told police, according to an arrest affidavit. Rather, it looked like a “machine gun.”

Alissa said a bullet had become stuck. The family took it away from him, upset he was playing with a gun in the house.

On Monday, police said, the 21-year-old man stormed a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder and killed 10 people with a spray of bullets.

Little is known about Alissa or what may have motivated him to open fire at the store. The 10 victims ranged in age from 20 to 65 and included Eric Talley, an 11-year veteran of the Boulder police force.

According to the court affidavit, Alissa had purchased a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic pistol – a weapon that resembles a semi-automatic rifle and has a 30-round capacity – on March 16, six days before the shooting.

His sister-in-law, whose name was redacted from the court document, told investigators that she believed the gun his family had taken from Alissa was back in his room as of Monday night.

Alissa, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Syria who graduated from Arvada West High School in 2018, has had at least two previous run-ins with the law, according to an Arvada Police Department spokesman. There were criminal reports for a third-degree assault in 2017 and for criminal mischief in 2018, the department said.

The police department has not released records outlining the outcomes of those cases.

It was not immediately clear if Alissa had a lawyer in his current case, and family members did not respond to requests for comment.

Ali Aliwi Alissa, the suspect’s 34-year-old brother, told The Daily Beast that Alissa was antisocial and paranoid, and had talked at times in high school about “being chased” or said someone was looking for him.

Records from Arvada West High School show he was on the wrestling team during two seasons ending in 2018, according to Cameron Bell, a spokeswoman for the school district.

Alissa, who was treated for a leg wound suffered in an exchange of gunfire with responding police, is now in jail awaiting an initial court appearance on murder and other charges. Authorities said they were confident he acted alone.

US President Joe Biden responded to the Boulder, Colorado grocery store massacre

by calling for the urgent reinstatement of the Clinton-era ban on “assault weapons” and other stricter gun control measures.
“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour” to take “common sense” gun control measures, Biden said on Tuesday, even as he admitted not knowing much about the identity of the shooter, his motivation, or the weapons he actually used.

“We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator. It passed, it was the law for the longest time and it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again,” the president added.

Biden’s remarks were a reference to the ‘Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act,’ a 10-year ban on “assault weapons” passed in 1994, during the presidency of Bill Clinton. The ban was part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, that liberal Democrats have since blamed for the mass incarceration that disproportionately affected African-Americans.

While Democrats such as Biden and the ban’s author Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) have claimed that it reduced mass shootings and saved lives, multiple studies have shown it had “no significant effect” in that regard. A 2014 fact-check of Feinstein’s claim by the liberal-leaning Pro Publica concluded there was “no evidence” the 1994 ban actually saved lives.

Gun control advocates and Democrat lawmakers immediately called for another crackdown on firearms as the Boulder shooting unfolded on Monday. The Democrat-majority House of Representatives had already passed a bill to strengthen background checks on March 11, just five days before eight people were killed in a series of shootings in Atlanta, Georgia.

Colorado Murder Family saw guns days before shooting Biden plans to ban guns