Boulder grocery store shooter is a 'stupid loner' who lived in basement of his family's $800,000 home, worked in their Middle Eastern restaurant and has never had a girlfriend, brother-in-law reveals
Boulder grocery store shooter Ahmad Alissa is a 'loner' who has never had a girlfriend and lives in his family's basement, his brother-in-law has claimed.
Ahmad Alissa, 21, is in custody in Boulder on ten counts of murder. He will make his first court appearance on Thursday.
On Monday, he opened fire on the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, murdering ten people before handing himself in.
It's unclear what his motive is but a picture of the gunman has emerged through descriptions from friends, family and former high school classmates.
They describe him as 'paranoid', 'anti-social', 'violent' and some say he has the temper 'of a demon'.
Social media posts from his Facebook page also indicate his frame of mind.
He ranted about Islamophobes and against President Trump.
Now, his brother-in-law is speaking out to reveal more details of his introverted lifestyle.
'He was a loner, just sitting to the side, not with us. It was strange. He lived with his family and lived in the basement at their home. He works with his family, his brothers, at their restaurant. There was never a girlfriend and not many friends.
'He has a reputation for being stupid, not smart. He was not like a proper Muslim, I don’t know what kind of Muslim he was. He did not go to the mosque I go to,' his brother-in-law Usame Almusa told The Sun.
He added that no one in the family knows what his motive was and that his distraught father has 'almost died' from all the crying he has done this week.
'I do not know what happened with this guy to make him do this. We just don’t know what made him go so crazy. I wish we knew. This is terrible for the family, for the victims, for America. His father has almost died from the crying.
'His mother, Hadija, his sisters, my wife, his brothers, are all crying.' He also worked at The Sultan Grill, which is owned by his parents.
Investigators were seen searching the $800,000 Colorado home of the King Soopers gunman on Tuesday as more of his Facebook rants are revealed and a police report shows that he 'beat up a teen bully who called him a terrorist' in 2017.
Agents of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrived at the residence of Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, who was named by police earlier in the day as the man who shot dead 10 people at the Boulder grocery store on Monday afternoon. The grocery store is about 30 miles from his Arvada home.
Alissa was pictured leaving the store handcuffed and bloody following the rampage and was booked into the Boulder County Jail today after being released from hospital.
Neighbors said police arrived at the five-bedroom family home at around 3pm and left the property an hour and a half later.
DailyMail.com photos show CBI investigators and police touring the quiet suburban street, and speaking to neighbors.
A woman at the family home - thought to be Alissa's mother - threatened to call the police on a DailyMail.com reporter and said the family are not planning to speak to the media.
She said: 'We are not talking to anyone. You are not allowed to stand next to my house. If you don't leave, I will call 911.'
Meanwhile, more social media posts from the gunman's Facebook page were released on Tuesday.
In Facebook posts over the last two years, he complained about not having a girlfriend, ranted about President Trump and talked about his Islamic faith.
He also ranted online about 'racist islamophobes' hacking his phone.
'Just curious what are the laws about phone privacy because I believe my old school (a west) was hacking my phone. Anyone know if I can do anything through the law?' Alissa wrote on March 18, 2019, appearing to refer to Arvada West High School.
Another post dated for March 16, 2019, reads: 'The Muslims at the #christchurch mosque were not the victims of a single shooter. They were the victims of the entire Islamophobia industry that vilified them.'
The post appears to reference the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shootings of 2019, when a single gunman killed 51 people after he opened fire on two separate mosques.
Neighbors said police arrived at the five-bedroom family home at around 3pm and left the property an hour and a half later. Family members of Alissa are seen peaking out from behind a curtain of their home
DailyMail.com photos show CBI investigators and police touring the quiet suburban street, and speaking to neighbors
One of the neighbors on the street cooperated with the authorities by allowing them into her home
The grocery store is about 30 miles from his Arvada home (driveway pictured)
A woman at the family home - thought to be Alissa's mother - threatened to call the police on a DailyMail.com reporter and said the family are not planning to speak to the media
Alissa, a high school wrestler who has been described by his family as 'mentally ill', was born in Syria and moved to the US with his family when he was three.
According to a police report, obtained by the Daily Beast, in 2017, Alissa, then 17, 'blacked out' and violently assaulted a classmate who had called him a terrorist.
The report says that Alissa attacked another student, Alex Kimose, who he said had been bullying him.
Kimose was reportedly left with a 'red and swollen' face and his eye partially closed.
The report claims that Kimose was 'crying and throwing up' when his father arrived to the school and threatened to press charges.
Alissa said he could not take being bullied anymore so he 'blacked out and rushed him'.
At the time, Alissa claimed that Kimose called him 'racist names, called him a terrorist, and even took a video of him and put it on Snapchat'.
Alissa was charged with a misdemeanor for the attack, according to the Daily Beast.
The Sun on Wednesday cited anonymous FBI sources who said he was having 'issues with family'.
During Monday's rampage, authorities said Alissa opened fire at 2.40pm on the King Soopers grocery store.
He was taken into custody at 3.28pm and was transported to the hospital to be treated for a leg wound. Alissa asked if he could speak with his mother after surrendering to police on Monday, having stripped off and laid down his down his Ruger AR-556 rifle, handgun and tactical vest in the supermarket's aisles.
He has since been released from the hospital and is now in Boulder County Jail.
Police have not yet confirmed his motive. He has been charged with ten counts of murder.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that he was known to the FBI because he was linked to another person who has been under investigation for something else. They didn't give any more details.
His brother confirmed he was the shooter in an interview with The Daily Beast on Tuesday, saying he was 'paranoid' and 'very antisocial'.
He insisted that the shooting was not politically-motivated and said:'[It was] not at all a political statement, it's mental illness.
Images taken on Tuesday also showed the Sultan Grill restaurant (pictured) in Arvada, Colorado, which is owned by Alissa's family
The empty restaurant was photographed on Tuesday just a day after the mass shooting in Boulder, about 30 miles away
The Sultan Grill restaurant in Arvada, Colorado, was closed on Tuesday, a day after the shooting
Meanwhile, more social media posts from the gunman's Facebook page were released on Tuesday. Alissa wrote in March 2019: 'Just curious what are the laws about phone privacy because I believe my old school (a west) was hacking my phone. Anyone know if I can do anything through the law?'
'The Muslims at the #christchurch mosque were not the victims of a single shooter. They were the victims of the entire Islamophobia industry that vilified them,' one post reads
In July 2019, the gunman ranted about racist islamophobic people 'hacking his phone'
'The guy used to get bullied a lot in high school, he was like an outgoing kid but after he went to high school and got bullied a lot, he started becoming anti-social,' he said.
Another told The Denver Post that Alissa was 'violent', 'scary to be around' and once threatened to kill teammates on his wrestling team.
'He was kind of scary to be around. His senior year, during the wrestle-offs to see who makes varsity, he actually lost his match and quit the team and yelled out in the wrestling room that he was, like, going to kill everybody.
'Nobody believed him. We were just all kind of freaked out by it, but nobody did anything about it,' Dayton Marvel said. Another, Angel Hernandez, recalled an incident where another wrestler teased him for losing and he just 'started punching him'.
Alissa has been arrested at least once before including in 2017 when he punched someone who had made fun of his race.
In a July 2019 Facebook post, he ranted: 'Yeah if these racist Islamophobic people would stop hacking my phone and let me have a normal life I probably could.'
Hernandez, the fellow wrestler, added: 'He would talk about him being Muslim and how if anybody tried anything, he would file a hate crime and say they were making it up.
'It was a crazy deal. I just know he was a pretty cool kid until something made him mad, and then whatever made him mad, he went over the edge — way too far.
'He was always talking about (how) people were looking at him and there was no one ever where he was pointing people out. We always thought he was messing around with us or something.'
His arrest affidavit, which was released on Tuesday morning, reveals that after shooting a man once in the grocery store parking lot, Alissa then approached him while he was still laying on the ground and shot him again, repeatedly.
Alissa is shown (left) wearing wrestling medals from the North American Grappling Association, in an undated Facebook photo. According to former high school friends he was a sore loser who would throw his head gear on the ground in a tantrum if he lost
Alissa is shown being led out of the supermarket in handcuffs. He was fully clothed and wearing a green tactical vest inside the store but he stripped down to be arrested
The gunman is seen being loaded onto a stretcher after the shooting on Monday
On Facebook, Alissa complained about not having a girlfriend. He also ranted against President Donald Trump's immigration policies
Witnesses described Alissa - who is 200lbs and 5ft 6 - as 'fat' and said he was wearing a green tactical vest. When police arrested him, he'd removed the vest, his top and his shoes, and was wearing shorts. He was shot once in the right leg in a standoff with police.
Alissa's sister-in-law told police she had seen him playing with a 'machine gun' in the days before the shooting but that she didn't suspect anything.
He bought a Ruger AR- 556 pistol exactly a week ago on March 16, 2021.
Monday's shooting in Colorado is the seventh mass shooting in the country and comes just a week after a gunman killed eight people at three massage spas in Georgia.
On Tuesday, President Biden gave an address to the nation about the shooting.
He said he would not 'speculate' on the shooter's motive but used the shooting to call for a ban on assault weapons across the country.
'Less than a week after the murders of eight people, while a flag was still flying half staff, another American city has been scarred by trauma.
'While we're still waiting for more information.
'I don't need to wait another minute to take common sense steps that will save lives. We can ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines in this country. We should do it again. The Senate should immediately pass the house bills that closed loopholes in the background system.
'This is not and should not be a partisan issue.
'We have to act. We should also ban assault weapons in the process.
'I'll have much more to say... but I want to be clear: those poor folks who died left behind families. We can save lives.'
Mourners left flowers and tributes to Eric Talley outside the Boulder Police Department
More tributes were also left outside the grocery store
It's unclear why he unleashed terror on the supermarket or whether the gun he was using - described by witnesses as an AR-15 - was legally purchased.
In his arrest affidavit, cops described how he played with the weapon in front of family.
'Alissa was seen playing with a gun she thought looked like a 'machine gun' about 2 days ago. She did not believe the gun looked like the rifles she has seen in old Western movies, and that she thought it looked like a 'machine gun.'
'Alissa had been talking about having a bullet stuck in the gun and was playing with the gun.
'{Redacted] and [redacted] were upset with Alissa for playing with the gun in the house and took the gun,' it read.
Police have still not yet confirmed that he was the man who was seen being led out of the grocery store in handcuffs, bleeding from the leg, but they did say he was shot in the leg in a standoff with police.
The victims have been identified as; Denny Strong, 20, Neven Stanisic, 23, Rikki Olds, 25, Suzanne Fountain, 59, Terri Licher, 51, Eric Talley, 51, Kevin Mahoney, 61, Lynn Murray, 62, and Jodie Waters, 65.
Talley was a cop who recently changed jobs to work more away from the front-line. He was also a father-of-seven.
Leiker had worked at the grocery store for 30 years. She was dating a colleague who survived the shooting.
Officials revealed at a press conference on Tuesday morning that some of the victims were at the store to get their COVID-19 vaccine.
Witnesses described him shooting two of three shots then stopping calmly before opening fire again. One survivor said he was not 'spraying'.
Harrowing 911 calls reveal how officers feared he was wearing a tactical vest. They told each other to take 'head shots only' to bring him down.
A picture of the gunman is also starting to emerge as friends and family share their shock.
His 34-year-old brother Ali told the Beast he was 'deeply disturbed'.
Others, including some who wrestled with him in high school, say he was a sore loser who sometimes threw tantrums if he lost.
'One thing I can tell you is he didn't take losing very well.
'I remember that in wrestling.
'He would throw his headgear, wouldn't talk to the coaches when he lost.
'If I remember correctly, even cussed out one of the coaches one time.'
At a press conference on Tuesday morning, officials said they still did not know what the shooter's motive was.
'We will make sure that the suspect is held accountable for what he did to them yesterday,' Boulder District Attorney Michael Douhgerty said.
He was eventually shot in the leg in a standoff with the cops.
When police arrived at the scene, they found two victims' bodies in the parking lot.
Once inside, they saw another.
Authorities were heard over a loudspeaker telling Alissa to surrender before he emerged from the store in handcuffs.
Shortly after learning of the incident, Colorado Gov Jared Polis said in a statement: 'My heart is breaking as we watch this unspeakable event unfold in our Boulder community.
'We are making every public safety resource available to assist the Boulder County Sheriff's Department as they work to secure the store.
'I'm incredibly grateful to the brave men and women who have responded to the scene to help the victims of this senseless tragedy.'
Alissa's brother told The Beast about an incident when he was in high school and feared he was going to be killed.
'[He believed] he was being chased, someone is behind him, someone is looking for him.
'When he was having lunch with my sister in a restaurant, he said, 'People are in the parking lot, they are looking for me.'
'She went out, and there was no one. We didn't know what was going on in his head,' he said.
Boulder Mayor Sam Weaver said that 'words can do no justice to the tragedy that has unfolded this afternoon'.
'Our community will soon grieve our losses, and begin our healing.
Our brave police officers and first responders have the gratitude of our entire city.'
White House press secretary Jen Psaki shared Monday evening that President Joe Biden 'has been briefed on the shooting in Colorado and he will be kept up to date by his team as there are additional developments'.
In Brussels, Biden's secretary of state Antony Blinken began remarks at NATO headquarters by offering his 'deepest condolences to the loved ones of those who were killed, including a law enforcement officer'.
Former Rep Gabby Giffords also released a statement about the shooting on Monday, saying: 'This is an especially personal tragedy for me.
'I survived a shooting at a grocery store, in a tragedy that devastated my beloved community of Tucson.
'It's been 10 years, and countless American communities have had to face something similar.
'This is not normal, and it doesn't have to be this way. It's beyond time for our leaders to take action.'
Giffords said that every victim 'had hopes, dreams and people who loved them. They are no longer with us because of preventable tragedies'.
Colorado previously suffered two of the most infamous mass shootings in US history - massacres that prompted nationwide soul-searching but did not result in major changes to gun ownership laws.
In 1999, two boys shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing themselves.
Then in 2012, a heavily armed man stormed a movie theater in Aurora, murdering 12.
The gunman is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
The city of Boulder imposed a ban on 'assault-style weapons' and large-capacity gun magazines in the wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting in 2018.
But a judge last week blocked that ban, local media reported, in a decision hailed by the NRA. In a statement, the King Soopers chain offered 'thoughts, prayers and support to our associates, customers, and the first responders who so bravely responded to this tragic situation'.
'We will continue to cooperate with local law enforcement and our store will remain closed during the police investigation,' the statement reads.
A victim is shown on the floor of the store after the shooting. Ten people were killed and survivors ran for their lives
One video of the incident from YouTube shows two victims (circled) lying on the ground in the parking lot of the store
Tactical police units respond to the scene of King Soopers. The windows of the store were left broken, likely from gunfire
King Soopers employees are led away from an active shooter at the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, U.S
Safety officials gather near the Boulder King Soopers grocery store after a shooting that killed multiple people in Boulder
Police officers outside of the Boulder King Soopers grocery store after a shooting that killed multiple people in Boulder
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