BOULDER: The 21-year-old suspect in this week’s Colorado mass shooting will make his first court appearance on Thursday, three days after authorities say he opened fire at a supermarket and killed 10 people, including a policeman.
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 the Table Mesa section of Boulder, some 45 km northwest of Denver. He will appear in county court in Boulder at 8:15 a.m. (1415 GMT), according to court records.
The massacre was the country’s second mass shooting in a week, after another gunman shot eight people to death at three Atlanta-area day spas on March 16.
The twin attacks prompted President Joe Biden to call on Congress to strengthen gun restrictions. Legislation to bolster background checks and ban certain semi-automatic rifles has stalled amid Republican opposition.
Police have not yet publicly identified a motive for the killings. Alissa’s 34-year-old brother described him as antisocial and paranoid in an interview with the Daily Beast.
The suspect’s sister-in-law told police on Monday evening that he had been “playing with” a firearm she described as resembling a “machine gun” two days earlier, upsetting family members, according to an arrest affidavit filed by police in the case. — Reuters
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