Gunman convicted of murdering 10 at Colorado supermarket

The man who fatally shot 10 people at a Boulder, Colorado, grocery store in 2021 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison Monday. Jurors rejected his lawyers’ argument that mental illness had made him unable to distinguish right from wrong.

The verdict followed about two weeks of testimony that focused on the mindset of the gunman, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, at the time of the shooting. Alissa, now 25, was diagnosed with schizophrenia after the attack.

His lawyers admitted that he had carried out the shooting, but they said that he was so unwell at the time that he could not know that what he was doing was wrong.

The shooting March 22, 2021, took place at a King Soopers supermarket, less than a week after another mass shooting, at spas in the Atlanta area. The victims in Colorado ranged in age from 20 to 65. They included the first police officer to arrive at the scene, store employees and shoppers.

Jurors deliberated for about six hours over two days before coming to their unanimous conclusion.

By state law, the 10 convictions of first-degree murder, including the murder of a police officer, meant Judge Ingrid S. Bakke had to sentence Alissa to life in prison. She gave him 10 consecutive life sentences, with no possibility of parole.

Alissa, who has been in custody since the shooting, wore a striped dress shirt and khaki pants in court Friday.

While the guilty verdicts were being read, he bit his nails and conferred with members of his defense team. Later, at sentencing, he returned handcuffed and wearing an orange and white jail outfit.

In statements before the judge handed down the life sentence, families described lives cut short and the horrible hours after the shooting, when they did not know if their loved ones were alive or dead.

Erika Mahoney, whose father Kevin Mahoney was killed, addressed Alissa directly, saying she could not understand why he had gunned her father down outside the grocery store.

“The saddest thing is, had you pulled into the parking lot of King Soopers that day without a gun, gotten out of your car and instead screamed ‘I need help!’ my father would’ve been the first one at your side,” she said.

Nikolina Stanisic, whose brother Neven, 23, was the first person killed in the attack, told the court that her older brother was their parents’ “first joy, first happiness,” and now “their first sadness and heartbreak.”

Later, she addressed Alissa: “We hope that you suffer for the rest of your life,” she said.

In addition to the 10 murder counts, Alissa was also convicted of a series of other charges, including 38 counts of attempted murder and several counts of possessing a large capacity gun magazine.

At closing arguments Friday, Michael Dougherty, the Boulder County district attorney, said Alissa had planned his attack and been “determined” and “focused” as he entered the parking lot and began firing at his victims. Prosecutors had the burden of proving that Alissa was sane, meaning he was able to know right from wrong.

Dougherty said Alissa’s actions that day, including his eventual surrender to police, were indicators of sanity. He showed jurors evidence that Alissa had researched other mass shootings and that he had chosen not to shoot one older shopper. He also noted the testimony of a psychologist who met with Alissa and said he had seemed disappointed to learn that Colorado no longer imposes the death penalty.

“He knew it was wrong,” Dougherty said, describing Alissa’s interaction with the psychologist. “Now he’s asking to be punished.”

But Alissa’s lawyers said that he was having serious symptoms of psychosis when the shooting took place, and that he had been hearing voices and growing paranoid as his illness went untreated.

“This tragedy was born out of illness, not out of choice,” one of his lawyers, Kathryn Herold, told the jurors.

Alissa did not testify at the trial, nor did he speak at his sentencing. But since early this month, jurors heard testimony from witnesses to the shooting, psychologists and Alissa’s family members.

His mother said that his mental health had appeared to decline over the years but that he had continued working at a restaurant the family owns.

Under Colorado law, people can be found not guilty by reason of insanity if a jury decides that their minds were “so diseased or defective” at the time of the crime that they could not know their actions were wrong.

The verdict in the Boulder shooting recalled another high-profile case in Colorado, when jurors rejected the insanity defense of James Holmes, who killed 12 people in a mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora in 2012. Holmes, too, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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