Shooter's sanity at stake as trial begins in Colorado

BOULDER, Colorado (AP) — A man who gunned down 10 people in a mass shooting at a supermarket was not crazy when he unleashed terror in a Colorado college town but a calculating killer who knew what he was doing was wrong, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday in his opening statement, which was immediately disputed by the defense.

The trial of Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa began on the day of the March 2021 shooting in Boulder after years of legal wrangling over his mental state and will likely focus on whether he was legally competent.

Alissa's attorney argued that his client, who has been diagnosed with treatment-resistant schizophrenia, suffered from hallucinations in the lead-up to the 2021 shooting at the King Soopers grocery store – he heard screaming voices, saw people who weren't there and believed he was being followed.

Alissa has pleaded not guilty because she is not mentally competent. No one, including Alissa's lawyers, disputes that he was the shooter.

“We're not running from this. But if you're going to point the finger at this guy, you deserve to know the truth about him. This man, Ahmad Alissa, is a sick human being,” his attorney Samuel Dunn said in his opening statement.

A prosecutor argued that Alissa was able to distinguish right from wrong and was therefore sane.

“The victims were random, but the murders were absolutely intentional and deliberate,” Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty told jurors.

Alissa sat in the courtroom next to his lawyers in a striped white shirt, sometimes turning in his chair to look at a video screen on which the lawyers presented evidence and bullet points of their arguments.

The victims' relatives sat in the rows on the opposite side of the courtroom, occasionally dabbing their eyes and comforting each other during the presentations.

Alissa is accused of 10 counts of murder, 15 counts of attempted murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting in Boulder, about 50 kilometers northwest of Denver.

Alissa's motive, if he had one, remained unclear, and Dougherty did not suspect one. He argued that Alissa acted intentionally and with full knowledge of his wrongdoing.

Most of the people shot in and outside the store were dead within a little over a minute. Alissa targeted people who were fleeing – and made a special effort to finish off the injured with more shots, Dougherty emphasized.

“The shooter prepared to kill them, planned to kill them, and went and executed 10 people at King Soopers. That's why you're here,” Dougherty told the jury after showing photos of each victim and describing why each was at the store that day.

None of those shot survived. After shooting eight people, Alissa crept through the store – it was quiet, only the background music was still playing from the speakers – and then discovered and killed 59-year-old Suzanne Fountain as she was leaving a hiding place in another aisle.

His final victim was Boulder police officer Eric Talley, a father of seven and one of the first three officers to enter the store.

Alissa surrendered to the other arriving police officers, voluntarily stripped down to his underwear and followed their instructions as they approached him and handcuffed him.

“There are no hallucinations, no delusions, no confusion,” Dougherty said of Alissa’s behavior.

Alissa's lawyer described a series of hallucinations, delusions and social withdrawal that relatives said Alissa experienced before the shooting and which were later confirmed by psychiatrists.

The schizophrenia was so severe that it took years for him to see therapists and only then was he given a drug called clozapine, which, Dunn stressed, is only used when other treatments don't work.

Before the shooting, Alissa had not received medical care because she was part of a Syrian immigrant family and her father believed the cause was possession by an evil spirit or jinn, Dunn said.

“I want you to imagine that in your ears, where you find neither protection nor peace, you cannot identify the source: all you hear is screaming and yelling,” Dunn said. “That is what was transmitted into Ahmad Alissa's head.”

One time, Alissa's father woke up at 3 a.m. and his son, who was also awake, asked if he had seen a man in the bathroom. The father looked and no one was there, Dunn said.

Dunn described statements from relatives that Alissa was emotionally withdrawn before the shooting and only spoke when spoken to.

“The law says you can act intentionally and still be insane. But the law does not allow you to ignore clear, unequivocal evidence of severe and chronic mental illness and claim the person is sane and able to distinguish right from wrong,” Dunn said.

He urged the jury to “use their common sense, apply the law” and find Alissa insane.

If Alissa succeeds in pleading not guilty on the grounds of insanity, he could be spared a prison sentence and instead be committed to the state mental hospital indefinitely.

A mental health expert testified during a 2022 competency hearing that Alissa said he bought firearms to carry out a mass shooting and implied he wanted to be killed by police.

The defense argued in a court document that, according to his relatives, he irrationally believed the FBI was following him and that he would talk to himself as if he were speaking to someone who was not present.

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Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming.