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BOULDER, Colo. (CN) — A police officer who responded to a 2021 grocery store shooting in Colorado detailed before a jury Tuesday how he felt as he lay on the floor of the store, aiming his handgun at the man in a tactical vest suspected of killing 10 random people with an assault rifle.
Prosecutors in a mass murder trial say Ahmad Alissa used a Ruger AR-556 to indiscriminately kill 10 shoppers and workers at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder’s Table Mesa neighborhood on March 22, 2021.
City of Boulder Police Officer Richard Steidell was on his lunch break that day when the call came over the radio for all officers to respond to the shooting.
Before the jury on Tuesday, Steidell said he jumped into action, knowing the store was a soft target with little security and that he didn’t want to be the one eating lunch while everyone was working.
Steidell and several other officers entered the store after the shooter had claimed 10 lives, including of Boulder Police Officer Eric Tally, who lay in a pool of blood, Steidell said. He remembered the store was eerily quiet, with the only sound being the playing of soft muzak.
When the shooter opened fire on the officers, Steidell testified about dropping to the ground and firing his handgun down the aisle.
“Then I waited for the threat to come back out,” Steidell said. “I felt outgunned, that’s for sure. A handgun doesn’t have very many rounds and it’s not a long-range weapon.”
When he realized he’d lost sight of the shooter, Steidell said he pulled back to the store entrance alongside his fellow officers. Steidell then helped move another deceased victim’s body outside the store, and worked to secure a bus to transport survivors away from the store.
Steidell added that he didn’t learn that he had hit the suspect in the leg until hours later during a debrief.
Upon the shot in the leg, the suspect stripped down to his underwear and turned himself into police.
In addition to 10 counts of first-degree murder, Alissa faces 47 counts of attempted murder in the first degree, one count of assault in the first degree and six counts of possession of a large-capacity magazine during the commission of a felony. As sentence enhancements, he also faces 47 counts of a crime of violence with a semiautomatic assault weapon.
The shooter’s public defenders do not deny that their client committed the killings. Instead, they’ve argued he’s not guilty by reason of insanity, which he pleaded last November after undergoing nearly two years of competency restoration. The case therefore hinges on whether the jury thinks his mental illness prevented him from forming intent and understanding right from wrong.
Prosecutors called several other officers to testify on Tuesday, with beats ranging from the touristy Pearl Street Mall to the local University of Colorado campus. Local park rangers and officers from as far as Denver responded that day to help secure the Boulder store.
Parties made opening arguments on Sept. 5. The trial is scheduled to run through the end of September.
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