When police officers put the half-dressed, barefoot and wounded suspect into handcuffs after the 2021 mass shooting at a Boulder King Soopers grocery store, they peppered him with rapid questions.
Why was he wearing only underwear? Did he shoot people? Had he come alone? Where were his clothes?
“Where’s the gun?” Boulder County Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. Joshua Bonafede asked Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa as they stood inside the store.
“It’s over there,” Alissa answered, motioning to an area where he’d left his clothes, ammunition and guns, according to body-worn camera footage played in Boulder County District Court Thursday.
Judge Ingrid Bakke is now considering whether jurors at his trial next month should be allowed to hear Alissa’s answers to law enforcement in the chaotic moments after the mass shooting on March 22, 2021, at the Table Mesa grocery store.
Alissa is charged with killing 10 people in the attack. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, meaning that his attorneys do not contest that he carried out the mass shooting but say he should not be held legally responsible. They say he was so mentally ill at the time of the killings that he could not tell right from wrong.
After years of delays because Alissa was too mentally ill to stand trial, a weeks-long jury trial is now scheduled for September. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys took up several pre-trial issues during a motions hearing Thursday.
Bakke is now considering a request from defense attorneys to stop jurors from hearing Alissa’s comments after the attack, on the grounds that Alissa was not advised of his right to remain silent before answering the questions.
Prosecutors say the statements show Alissa’s grasp on reality and undermine defense claims of insanity. They argued jurors should be allowed to hear the statements because the questions were aimed at immediate safety concerns, so the questioning did not first require officers to advise Alissa of his rights.
Alissa told officers as they walked him out of the store that he wanted to go home, and he demanded several times to call his mom. Bonafede testified Thursday that Alissa seemed eerily calm as he surrendered, and Bonafede wasn’t sure whether Alissa was “on something or just crazy,” as public defender Kathryn Herold put it.
Prosecutors on Thursday also sought to prevent jurors from hearing about Alissa’s long road to becoming competent to stand trial. Competency is a separate issue from insanity in which the court considers whether a defendant can presently understand the proceedings and participate in his own defense.
The case against Alissa, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, was stalled for years because he was considered incompetent to stand trial.
Alissa’s defense attorneys argued that information about Alissa’s competency treatment was critical for jurors to hear in order to understand his mental health. Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty argued that only very limited information about competency could be presented during the jury trial.
“The sole issue in this case is whether or not Mr. Alissa was sane or insane,” defense attorney Samuel Dunn said, arguing that information on competency was relevant to that issue. “… The prosecution has essentially made this case about Mr. Alissa not being as sick as all the experts in this case say that he is.”
Bakke did not rule on any of the matters presented Thursday but said she would issue written orders in the coming days.
Jury selection on the case is expected to start the first week of September, with the trial beginning in the week of Sept. 9 and lasting through the end of the month.
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Originally Published: August 15, 2024 at 12:43 p.m.
