A mentally ill man who killed 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in 2021 was convicted Monday of murder and faces life in prison.
Defense attorneys did not dispute that Ahmad Alissa, who has schizophrenia, fatally shot 10 people including a police officer in the city of Boulder. But he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, with the defense arguing he couldn’t tell right from wrong at the time of the attack.
In addition to 10 counts of first-degree murder, the jury found Alissa guilty of 38 charges of attempted murder, one count of assault, and six counts of possessing illegal, large-capacity magazines.
First-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence in Colorado. Sentencing in the case was set for later Monday, during which the victims and family were expected to address the court.
Alissa did not visibly react as the judge began reciting the guilty verdicts against him. He sat at a table with his attorneys and appeared to trade notes with members of the defense team, speaking quietly at times with one of his attorneys.
Judge Ingrid Bakke had warned against any outbursts. There were some tears and restrained crying on the victims’ side of the courtroom as the murder convictions were read.
The courtroom was packed largely with victims’ families and police officers, including those who were shot at by Alissa. Several members of Alissa’s family sat just behind him.
Alissa started shooting immediately after getting out of his car in a grocery store parking lot in March 2021. He killed most of the victims in just more than a minute and surrendered after an officer shot him in the leg.
Prosecutors had to prove Alissa was sane. They argued he didn’t fire randomly and showed an ability to make decisions by pursuing people who were running and trying to hide from him. He twice passed by a 91-year-old man who continued to shop, unaware of the shooting.
He came armed with steel-piercing bullets and illegal magazines that can hold 30 rounds of ammunition, which prosecutors said showed he took deliberate steps to make the attack as deadly as possible.
Several members of Alissa’s family, who immigrated to the United States from Syria, testified that he had become withdrawn and spoke less a few years before the shooting. He later began acting paranoid and showed signs of hearing voices, they said, and his condition worsened after he got COVID-19 in late 2020.
Alissa was diagnosed with schizophrenia after the attack and experts said the behaviors described by relatives are consistent with the onset of the disease.
