After more than two years of delays, the man accused of gunning down 10 people in a crowded Colorado supermarket has been declared competent to stand trial and entered a not guilty by reason of insanity plea.
Prosecutors told the court Tuesday how Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa researched how to carry out a mass shooting and kept notes on his iPhone for months before the March 22, 2021, slaughter at a King Soopers store in Boulder, The Associated Press reported. Alissa’s notes included how to shoot moving people.
“This defendant came armed and ready to kill as many innocent defenseless and unarmed people as quickly as he could,” Prosecutor Michael Dougherty said in court. “He killed eight of them within 69 seconds. He was able to do that because of the large capacity magazines.”
Alissa, 24, stands charged with 10 counts of murder, 15 counts of attempted murder, and other offenses. No one disputes that he was the gunman. At issue will be whether he knew right from wrong at the time of the shooting.
The competency issues that delayed the trial are not the same. Competency concerns whether a defendant is capable of comprehending what’s going on in the present in order for them to help their defense. District Court Judge Ingrid Bakke ruled Alissa competent to stand trial on Tuesday after he was forcible medicated.
Alissa has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. If his insanity plea is successful, he would be committed indefinitely to the state mental hospital instead of sentenced to prison.
Bakke ordered a sanity evaluation by January 8 and has tentatively scheduled the trial for August.
Boulder Police Detective Sarah Cantu testified on Tuesday that Alissa opened fire as soon as he got out of his car in the King Soopers parking lot, kililng Neven Stanisic inside his van. Stanisic had just finished repairing a coffee machine at the Starbucks inside the supermarket.
Next he shot front end manager Rikki Olds as he entered the store, killing her with one shot from point blank range. The other nine victims were shot multiple times as Alissa appeared to find a target, fire, and keep firing until they were dead, Cantu said.
“He found moving targets, pursued them and shot them until they stopped moving,” she said.
Cantu testified that everyone who was shot was killed.
Alissa also killed Erik Talley, one of the first three police officers to enter the store in response to the shooting.
Detectives have not determined a motive for the attack, but a forensic psychologist said in court in September that Alissa bought guns for the purpose of carrying out a mass shooting and said “there was some intention to commit suicide by cop.”
Investigators previously said that Alissa used a legally purchased AR-556 pistol, which is called a pistol only because it is equipped with a “pistol stabilizing brace” instead of a standard buttstock, to carry out his attack. The pistol brace is a “workaround” to avoid restrictions on short barreled rifles.
Alissa was captured when the second wave of police officers arrived and he was shot. Investigators found he had six illegal high capacity magazines.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: FILE – Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, accused of killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in March, is led into a courtroom for a hearing Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2021, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski/Pool, File)]
