BOULDER, Colo. (CN) — The day after a suspected gunman killed 10 people shopping at a Colorado grocery store, a woman 260 miles away told the Alamosa County Sheriff’s Department she was worried her 36-year-old son Marcos Martinez would become an active shooter.
“She advised that her son’s behavior has become very strange and believed that he is on drugs,” the 20-page request for an extreme risk protection order filed in April said. The so-called "red flag" law removes firearms from individuals deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
“She stated that he acts very paranoid and thinks people are following him," the request continued. Martinez also reported to carry a Palmetto State Armory AR-15.
In a hearing April 23, county attorney Christopher Friesell detailed Martinez’s ongoing struggles with methamphetamine and heroin, an escalating pattern of DUIs, claims of stalking and a pending criminal complaint involving harassment of workers at a local Walmart.
Martinez’s defense attorney Raymond Miller offered no evidence in support of his client, instead arguing the law itself is unconstitutional and that “taking away his guns will not fix his drug addiction.”
It was the first time this type of order was ever requested in Alamosa County. Twelfth Judicial District Judge Crista Newmyer-Olsen extended the protection order on Martinez for the maximum 364 days.
But it’s hard to know for certain whether or not this decision saved --- or will save --- lives. After all, without testimony from Martinez, no one can know for certain whether he was seriously planning an attack or whether he would have made good on alleged threats to shoot police.
Missed opportunities are equally ambiguous: no one requested an extreme risk protection order on 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, suspected of killing 10 people at a King Soopers on March 22. But many who work in violence prevention postulate this might have made the difference.
“This case is very tragic to me, the family could have used this tool to remove the gun from him,” said Eileen McCarron, president of Colorado Ceasefire, an organization that lobbied for the red-flag order and other gun reform measures in the state.
“Whether they didn't know they had that in their hands as a tool or whether they just didn't want to, I don’t know,” McCarron said. “When we have incidents like this in Boulder, that's indicative that there's something wrong in our laws. There's something wrong in our society.”
Between the massacre of 15 Columbine High School students in 1999 and the murders of 12 moviegoers at the Aurora Century 16 theater in 2012, Colorado Ceasefire members lobbied to close the gun sales loophole, limit magazines and mandate background checks.
On April 19, the nonprofit stood close as Governor Jared Polis signed two new reforms mandating the safe storage of firearms and the report of missing weapons to the state.
“I guess you can hear the frustration in my voice, and I feel that way, because it's unfortunate that it's tragedies that bring about change,” McCarron said.
Since 1993, 213 Coloradans died in 13 highly publicized incidents involving guns. Yet front-page mass shootings represent a very small portion of the 14.2 per 100,000 people who die from gunshot wounds every year in the state.
The Gun Violence Archive recorded 43,551 American gun deaths in 2020, including 19,395 homicides and 24,156 suicides. Of these, 610 were considered mass shootings defined as four or more people shot, not including the shooter.
By this standard, more than 150 mass shootings have occurred in the U.S. since January, including three in Colorado.
The ages of killers vary, as does race. Most are male.
Their most common attribute is technique rather than background, said Jaclyn Schildkraut an associate professor of criminal justice at SUNY Oswego. Shootings begin with a grievance that builds into violent ideation.