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BOULDER, Colo. (CN) — A jury of 12 began deliberating Friday to determine whether a man who opened fire on a Colorado grocery store in 2021, killing 10 people, was insane at the time of the attack.
Ahmad Alissa was 21-years-old on March 22, 2021 when he attacked the King Soopers grocery store in the Table Mesa neighborhood of Boulder, Colorado — killing 9 shoppers and workers, as well as one police officer.
The shooter’s defense attorneys do not deny that their client purchased weapons and killed the victims, but they’ve urged the jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity, arguing he was unable to tell right from wrong at the time of the crime.
Following his arrest, the defendant was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Defense attorneys described their client’s auditory hallucinations as “consistent voices,” “screaming” and — on the day of the attack — “killing voices.”
In December 2021, 20th Judicial District Chief Judge Ingrid Bakke found the shooter incompetent to stand trial and ordered him to be medicated. But when the court later found the shooter competent and able to stand trial, forensic psychiatrists evaluated him and said they were unable to determine if he was insane at the time of the crime, largely due to his lack of response to their questions.
Prosecutors, however, have argued there is a clear distinction between suffering from a mental illness and being insane.
“That is not somebody who is insane,” Ken Kuphner, assistant district attorney for the 20th Judicial District, argued during closing arguments. “We agree he is mentally ill, but he is not insane.”
Over the course of eight days, prosecutors interviewed police officers who responded to the shooting and who processed evidence. Prosecutors called to the witness stand victims who hid in the store during the shooting, along with other victims who ran.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys called in psychiatric experts who evaluated the defendant at the state hospital to gauge the severity of his illness and whether that amounted to legal insanity.
“Insanity is the only explanation for this tragedy,” argued public defender Kathryn Herold.
“What we know is that this tragedy was born out of illness and not choice,” Herold told the jury. “His mind was drowning in the voices. We also know that but for the psychosis, this tragedy would not have occurred.”
Over the course of two days, Herold and co-counsel Sam Dunn called their client’s parents and siblings to the stand to describe his declining state of mental health after contracting Covid-19 in late 2020.
“They never ever saw any violence. They never ever saw any anger. They never could have imagined,” Herold said. “They also told you how much of a tragedy it was for them — not just because their son was a part of this, [but because] they felt the pain of every victim who died that day, and they tried to give the police everything they could.”
Neither legal team could explain why the shooter carried out his attack or why he chose the Boulder grocery store.
No clear answer appeared on his phone, which contained 6,000 images of guns and indicated he looked up “Kanye West net worth” the morning of the attack. The defendant declined to testify and never offered an explanation to either police investigators or to the doctors who treated and evaluated him.
“Insanity is the only explanation for a mass shooting? That is not and should not be the law,” District Attorney Michael Dougherty countered on rebuttal.
Months after the attack, the shooter told psychiatrists he wanted to be sentenced to death. He said he was upset to learn Colorado had abolished the death penalty in 2020.
“There’s probably no better way to demonstrate his understanding of right and wrong than him saying ‘give me the death penalty,’” Dougherty concluded.
The victims, who were between 20 to 65 years old, included three King Soopers employees, several shoppers and a police officer. Police identified them as Boulder Police Officer Eric Talley, 51; Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.
The jury will deliberate until its members have reached a unanimous decision.
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