Trial expected to focus on shooter's competency in 2021 Colorado supermarket massacre

DENVER (AP) — A man sitting in his van after fixing a coffee machine inside a supermarket in the college town of Boulder was the first person killed. In just over a minute, nine more people died in a barrage of gunfire inside and outside the store in 2021 as the shooter targeted and pursued people who were moving.

Survivors fled out of the back of the store to escape the bullets. For more than an hour, others hid in shelves, checkout stands and offices.

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, then 21, surrendered after being shot in the leg by a police officer in the store, emerging wearing only his underwear and repeatedly asking officers to call his mother. His attorneys don't dispute he was the shooter.

But why he carried out the mass shooting remains unknown as his trial is set to begin this week. Public questioning of potential jurors began Tuesday with opening statements expected before the end of the week. Alissa is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, 15 counts of attempted murder and other offenses, including having six high-capacity ammunition magazine devices banned in Colorado after previous mass shootings.

The closest thing to a possible motive revealed so far was when a mental health evaluator testified during a competency hearing last year that Alissa said he bought firearms to carry out a mass shooting and suggested that he wanted police to kill him.

Robert Olds, whose 25-year-old niece Rikki Olds was the manager Alissa fatally shot at close range near the entrance, plans to sit in his usual spot in the front row throughout the trial. He has sometimes wished Alissa had just died in the attack. But he has held out hope that he would one day learn why his niece, known for her sense of humor and outgoing personality, and the others were killed. He has become less hopeful of that but is certain Alissa knew what he was doing.

“I hope he goes to prison for the rest of his life, and then he’ll serve the real penalty when he has to meet God and answer for killing 10 people,” he said.

The trial is expected to focus largely on Alissa's mental state at the time of the shooting. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers argue he should be acquitted because his mental illness prevented him from being able to tell right from wrong.

The defense argued in a court filing that his relatives said he irrationally believed that the FBI was following him and that he would talk to himself as if he were talking to someone who was not there. However, prosecutors point out Alissa was never previously treated for mental illness and was able to work up to 60 hours a week leading up to the shooting, something they say would not have been possible for someone severely mentally ill.

Alissa’s trial has been delayed because experts repeatedly found he was not able to understand legal proceedings and help his defense. But after Alissa improved after being forcibly medicated, Judge Ingrid Bakke ruled in October that he was mentally competent, allowing proceedings to resume.

Prosecutors will have the burden of proving he was sane, attempting to show Alissa that knew what he was doing and intended to kill people in the store.

Authorities have not explained why Alissa bypassed a King Soopers near his home in the Denver suburb of Arvada and drove about 15 miles (24 kilometers) to the chain’s store in Boulder, a city he had never visited before the shooting, according to the defense.

Prosecutors have presented evidence that, in the months before the shooting, Alissa had researched things like how to move and shoot with an assault rifle and what kinds of bullets are the most deadly. One court document noted without elaboration that he searched for information about the “Christ Church attacks," an apparent reference to the livestreamed shooting attacks by a white nationalist on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 people in 2019.

Alissa immigrated from Syria with his family as a toddler. He lived with his family in Arvada, where they owned a restaurant.

The only known problem Alissa had before the shooting was an incident in high school in 2018 when he was convicted of assaulting a fellow student, according to police documents. A former classmate also told The Associated Press that Alissa was kicked off the wrestling team after yelling he would kill everyone following a loss in a practice match.

A sister-in-law who lived in Alissa’s home told police that he had been playing with what she thought was a “machine gun” two days before the shooting before two relatives took it away, according to court documents.

Several of Alissa’s relatives are listed as potential witnesses for the defense during the trial.

Both sides will rely on experts to testify about his sanity, possibly including videos of their interviews with Alissa, said defense lawyer Karen Steinhauser, a former prosecutor and University of Denver law professor.

If jurors don’t believe Alissa was legally insane, they could also consider whether his mental illness prevented him from being able to act with deliberation and intent and find him guilty of second-degree murder instead, she said.

A sanity evaluation done by experts at the state mental hospital found Alissa was legally sane at the time of the attack, according to details provided by the defense in a court hearing this spring. According to the defense, the evaluators found the attack would not have happened but for Alissa’s untreated mental illness, which attorney Sam Dunn said was schizophrenia that included “auditory hallucinations.”

Olds said he is bracing himself to learn more horrific details about the shooting, including surveillance video not previously shown in public.

But he said having the trial behind him will help him and many of the families finally grieve what they’ve lost, he said.

“There’s no such thing as moving on. It’s finding other ways to live without your loved one,” he said.

FILE - Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, accused of killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in March 2021, is led into a courtroom for a hearing, Sept. 7, 2021, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, Pool, File)

FILE - Pictures of the 10 victims of a mass shooting in a King Soopers grocery store are posted on a cement barrier outside the supermarket in Boulder, Colo., on April 23, 2021. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

FILE - Tributes cover the temporary fence around the King Soopers grocery store in which 10 people died in a mass shooting in late March on Friday, April 23, 2021, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

A tribute to Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, is set up in her grandmother's home in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

A tribute to Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, is set up in her grandmother's home in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

Robert Olds, uncle of Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, looks through a memorial scrapbook in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

Robert Olds, uncle of Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, is interviewed in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

JERUSALEM (AP) — A missile fired by Yemen's Iran-backed rebels landed in an open area in central Israel early Sunday and triggered air raid sirens at its international airport, in the latest reverberation from the nearly yearlong war in Gaza. Israel hinted that it would respond militarily.

There were no reports of casualties or major damage, but Israeli media aired footage showing people racing to shelters in Ben Gurion International Airport. The airport authority said it resumed normal operations shortly thereafter.

A fire could be seen in a rural area of central Israel, and local media showed images of what appeared to be a fragment from an interceptor that landed on an escalator in a train station in the central town of Modiin.

The Israeli military said it made several attempts to intercept the missile using its multitiered air defenses but had not yet determined whether any had been successful. It said the missile appeared to have fragmented midair, and that the incident is still under review. The military said the sound of explosions in the area came from interceptors.

The Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis, have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel since the start of the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, but nearly all of them have been intercepted over the Red Sea.

In July, an Iranian-made drone launched by the Houthis struck Tel Aviv, killing one person and wounding 10 others. Israel responded with a wave of airstrikes on Houthi-held areas of Yemen, including the port city of Hodeidah, a Houthi stronghold.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at a similar response in remarks at a Cabinet meeting after Sunday's attack.

“The Houthis should have known by now that we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us," he said. “Anyone who needs a reminder is invited to visit the port of Hodeidah.”

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the rebels, said they fired a ballistic missile targeting “a military target” in Jaffa, which is part of Tel Aviv.

Hashim Sharaf al-Din, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run government, said Yemenis will celebrate the birthday of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad while “the Israelis will have to be in shelters.” Another senior Houthi official, Hezam al-Asad, posted a taunting message in Hebrew on the social media platform X.

The Houthis have also repeatedly attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea, in what the rebels portray as a blockade on Israel in support of the Palestinians. Most of the targeted ships have no connection to Israel.

The war in Gaza, which began with Hamas' Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel, has rippled across the region, with Iran and allied militant groups attacking Israeli and U.S. targets and drawing retaliatory strikes from Israel and its Western allies. On several occasions, the strikes and counterstrikes have threatened to trigger a wider conflict.

International carriers have canceled flights into and out of Israel on a number of occasions since the start of the war, adding to the war's economic toll on the country.

Iran supports militant groups across the region, including Hamas, the Houthis and Lebanon's Hezbollah, its most powerful ally, which has traded fire with Israel on a near-daily basis since the war in Gaza began. Iran and its allies say they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.

The military said around 40 projectiles were fired from Lebanon early Sunday, with most intercepted or falling in open areas.

In a separate incident, Israeli forces dropped leaflets over the Lebanese border town of al-Wazzani calling on residents to evacuate. The military later said there were no such evacuation orders, and that a local commander had acted without the approval of his superiors. It said the incident was under investigation.

It was not clear if anyone had evacuated the town, or if any message had been conveyed to residents that the leaflets were dropped in error.

The strikes along the Israel-Lebanon border have displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides. Israel has repeatedly threatened to launch a wider military operation against Hezbollah to ensure its citizens can return to their homes.

“The status quo will not continue,” Netanyahu said at the Cabinet meeting. “This requires a change in the balance of power on our northern border. We will do everything necessary to return our residents safely to their homes.”

Hezbollah has said it would halt its attacks if there is a cease-fire in Gaza. The United States and Arab mediators Egypt and Qatar have spent much of this year trying to broker a truce and the release of scores of hostages held by Hamas, but the talks have repeatedly bogged down.

In recent weeks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted on lasting Israeli control over the Gaza side of the border with Egypt, which Israeli forces captured in May. He has said Hamas used a network of tunnels beneath the border to import arms, allegations denied by Egypt, which along with Hamas is opposed to any lasting Israeli presence there.

An Israeli military official said late Saturday that of the dozens of tunnels discovered along the border, only nine entered Egypt, and all were found to have been sealed off. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, said it was not clear when the tunnels were sealed.

The discovery appeared to weaken Netanyahu’s argument that Israel needs to keep open-ended control of the corridor to prevent cross-border smuggling.

Egypt has said it sealed off the tunnels on its side of the border years ago, in part by creating its own military buffer zone along the frontier.

Melzer reported from Nahariya, Israel. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

A crater is seen after the military fired interceptors at what the Israeli army says is a missile launched from Yemen that landed in central Israel on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A police officer inspects the area around a fire after the military said it fired interceptors at a missile launched from Yemen that landed in central Israel on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A police officer inspects the area around a fire after the military said it fired interceptors at a missile launched from Yemen that landed in central Israel on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A firefighter works in the area around a fire after the military said it fired interceptors at a missile launched from Yemen that landed in central Israel on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A police officer inspects the area around a fire after the military said it fired interceptors at a missile launched from Yemen that landed in central Israel on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Smoke rises from a fire in central Israel after the Israeli army said a missile fired from Yemen landed in an open area on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)