BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A pharmacist who survived a 2021 mass shooting at a Colorado supermarket said Thursday during the gunman's trial that she heard him say, “This is fun” at least three times during the shooting. The chilling detail had not been revealed before.
Sarah Chen said she heard the comments while hiding with her coworkers and carefully listening for any sounds from the plexiglass barrier at the pharmacy counter that might alert them to the shooter’s presence after Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa had opened fire in the college town of Boulder.
“I heard him screaming, 'This is fun. This is fun,'" Chen said.
No one, including Alissa’s lawyers, disputes he was the shooter. Alissa has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting.
Alissa was diagnosed after the shooting with treatment-resistant schizophrenia. His attorneys say he had hallucinations that included hearing screaming voices, seeing people who weren’t there and believing he was being followed in the runup to the shooting. They argue he should be found not guilty because he was not able to tell the difference between right and wrong at the time of the shooting.
He is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, multiple counts of attempted murder and other offenses, including having six high-capacity ammunition magazine devices banned in Colorado after previous mass shootings.
Testimony began Sept. 5, and the trial is scheduled to finish by the end of the month.
Another pharmacy worker, Maggie Montoya, a professional runner, testified about what she saw and heard while hiding in a room next to the pharmacy. That included hearing Alissa say he was naked while he surrendered. She didn’t mention hearing Alissa say, “This is fun.”
A woman walks in front of the Boulder County Justice Center in Boulder, Colo., on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy announced Tuesday that it is teaming up with yet another energy company as part of a mission to transform portions of government-owned property once used for the nation's nuclear weapons program into prime real estate for renewable energy endeavors.
The federal agency will be negotiating a lease agreement with Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources Development for nearly 3 square miles (7.8 square kilometers) of land surrounding the nation's only underground repository for nuclear waste.
The project at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico is the latest to be announced by the Energy Department, which has identified more than 50 square miles (130 square kilometers) of government land that can be used for constructing solar arrays and battery storage systems that can supply utilities with emissions-free electricity.
Other lease agreements already are being negotiated for projects stretching from the Hanford Site in Washington state, where the U.S. produced plutonium, to national laboratories and other sites in Idaho, Nevada and South Carolina.
Andrew Mayock with the White House Council on Environmental Quality on Tuesday echoed a statement made earlier this year when the first negotiations were announced. He said federal agencies are using their scale and purchasing power to support the growth of the clean energy industry.
"We will spur new clean electricity production, which is good for our climate, our economy, and our national security,” he said.
At the nuclear repository in New Mexico, federal officials say there is potential to install at least 150 megawatts of solar and another 100 megawatts of storage.
While the amount of energy generated by NextEra at the WIPP site would be more than enough to meet the needs of the repository, none would feed directly into government operations there. Officials said the energy from the solar array would be sold to Xcel Energy by NextEra and put into the utility's distribution system.
Xcel serves customers in parts of New Mexico and Texas, as well as other states.
Officials said there is no estimate of when ground could be broken, saying engineering and planning work would be needed once a lease is signed and regulatory approvals would be required.
The largest of the so called cleanup-to-clean-energy projects is slated for the Hanford Site, where Hecate Energy LLC has plans to deliver a gigawatt-scale system that would span thousands of acres on the southeastern edge of the property. It could be several years before that project comes online.
FILE - The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is seen, March 6, 2014, near Carlsbad, N.M. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)
