BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A mentally ill man carefully amassed guns and ammunition to kill as many people as possible before pursuing and fatally shooting 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in 2021, proving he knew exactly what he was doing, a prosecutor told jurors Friday.
Ahmad Alissa's decision to buy steel-piercing bullets and an optic sight that put a red dot on his victims, before firing multiple times at all but one of his victims shows he acted with intent and was not insane at the time, Assistant District Attorney Ken Kupfner said during closing arguments in Alissa's trial. Everyone who was shot died in the attack.
Alissa, who has schizophrenia, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the attack at the store in the college town of Boulder.
Mental illness is not the same thing as insanity under the law. In Colorado, insanity is defined as having a mental disease so severe it is impossible for a person to tell the difference between right and wrong.
One of Alissa's attorneys, Kathryn Herold, accused prosecutors of trying to appeal to the emotions of jurors by presenting graphic videos of the attack and detailed testimony from victims, even though no one disputed Alissa was the shooter. While two state psychologists appointed by the court found that Alissa was sane at the time of the attack, Herold said they had some reservations. She told jurors that they are the ones who must decide whether he was insane or not.
“When you remove that emotion, it is clear that insanity is the only explanation for this tragedy,” she told them.
Alissa told the state psychologists that he heard voices that were yelling in his head, including what he described as “killing voices” right before the shooting. The psychologists said he never provided details about the voices and whether they said anything specific. However, Alissa did tell them that he thought the voices might stop if he committed a mass shooting.
Herold asked jurors to imagine what it was like to hear voices in your head, yelling in court: “Kill, kill, kill!”
Kupfner told jurors that Alissa fired his first shot at his second victim, Kevin Mahoney, in the parking lot after bracing himself on the hood of a car so he could take better aim with his semi-automatic pistol, which resembled an AR-15 rifle, Kupfner said. Alissa then pursued Mahoney as he tried to get back to the store.
“The defendant was tenacious and he was relentless,” Kupfner said.
During two weeks of trial, the families of those killed saw surveillance and police body camera video of the shooting. Survivors testified about how they fled, helped others to safety and hid. An emergency room doctor crawled onto a shelf and hid among bags of chips.
Herold disputed comments that witnesses said Alissa made during the attack, including “This is fun,” arguing that was out of step with the lack of emotion the experts found when they met with Alissa. She said she thought their brains were trying to make sense of what had happened.
Several members of Alissa’s family, who immigrated to the United States from Syria, testified that starting a few years earlier he had become withdrawn and spoke less. He later began acting paranoid and showed signs of hearing voices, and his condition worsened after he got COVID-19 in late 2020, they said.
Alissa’s mother told the court that she thought her son was “sick.” His father testified that he thought Alissa could be possessed by a djin — an evil spirit — and that his condition was shameful for his family.
His parents and some of Alissa's siblings sat in the court gallery for the first time during the trial on Friday, just a few feet behind him. Alissa fidgeted during the arguments, sometimes appearing to be paying attention to the attorneys and other times appearing distracted and looking around the room.
Relatives of the victims mostly sat on the other side of the courtroom.
Alissa 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.
Alissa started shooting immediately after getting out of his car at the store on March 22, 2021, killing most of the victims in just over a minute. He killed a police officer who responded to the attack and then surrendered after another officer shot him in the leg.
Alissa got an adrenaline rush and a sense of power from shooting people, Kupfner argued, though prosecutors did not offer any motive for the attack. Kupfner said Alissa first began searching for public places like bars and restaurants in Boulder to attack, before focusing his research on large stores the day before the shooting. Alissa pulled into the first supermarket he encountered as he entered Boulder on his drive from his home in the Denver suburb of Arvada, he said.
The defense did not have to provide any evidence in the case and did not present any experts to say he was insane.
However, the defense pointed out that the state psychologists did not have full confidence in their sanity finding. That was largely because Alissa did not provide them more information about what he was experiencing, even though it could have helped his case.
The experts also said they thought the voices he was hearing played some role in the attack and they did not believe it would have happened if Alissa were not mentally ill.
Trial of man who killed 10 at Colorado supermarket turns to closing arguments
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)
Trial of man who killed 10 at Colorado supermarket turns to closing arguments
A paid passenger on an expedition to the Titanic with the company that owned the Titan submersible testified before a U.S. Coast Guard investigatory panel Friday that the mission he took part in was aborted due to an apparent mechanical failure.
The Titan submersible imploded last year while on another trip to the Titanic wreckage site. A Coast Guard investigatory panel has listened to four days of testimony that raised questions about the company’s operations before the doomed mission.
Fred Hagen was first to testify Friday and was identified as a “mission specialist,” which he and other witnesses have characterized as people who paid a fee to play a role in OceanGate’s underwater exploration. He said his 2021 mission to the Titanic was aborted underwater when the Titan began malfunctioning and it was clear they were not going to reach the fabled wreck site.
The Titan appeared to be off course on its way to the Titanic, so the crew decided to use thrusters so the submersible could make its way to the wreck, Hagen said. The starboard thruster failed to activate, he said.
“We realized that all it could do was spin around in circles, making right turns,” Hagen said. “At this juncture, we obviously weren't going to be able to navigate to the Titanic.”
Hagen said the Titan dropped weights, resurfaced and the mission was scrapped. He said he was aware of the potentially unsafe nature of getting in the experimental submersible.
“Anyone that wanted to go was either delusional if they didn't think that it was dangerous, or they were embracing the risk,” he said.
OceanGate co-founder and Titan pilot Stockton Rush was among five people who died when the submersible imploded en route to the site of the Titanic wreck in June 2023.
Earlier this month, the Coast Guard opened a public hearing that is part of a high-level investigation into the cause of the implosion. The public hearing began Sept. 16 and some of the testimony has focused on problems the Washington state company had prior to the fatal 2023 dive.
During Thursday's testimony, company scientific director Steven Ross told the investigators the sub experienced a malfunction just days before the Titanic dive. Earlier in the week, former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge said he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was committed only to making money.
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little in the way of science.”
The hearing is expected to resume next week and run through Sept. 27.
Other witnesses Friday included engineer Dave Dyer of the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab. Dyer provided details about the lab's relationship with OceanGate while its submersible was in development and said the company and lab disagreed about fundamental aspects of its engineering.
OceanGate felt it was better to terminate the relationship and take over the engineering itself, Dyer said.
“It was the engineering. We were butting heads too much,” Dyer said.
Another Friday witness, Triton Submarines chief executive officer Patrick Lahey, recounted meeting OceanGate personnel in 2019 and getting a look at their submersible when it was in development. He said he “wasn't particularly impressed” by what he saw.
Lahey stressed that it's important for submersibles to be accredited to ensure safety.
“I just said it looked to me like a lot of the stuff was not quite ready for primetime. And that there were many things in it that I thought had not been executed as appropriately as they should be,” Lahey said.
Lochridge and other witnesses have painted a picture of a company led by people who were impatient to get the unconventionally designed craft into the water. Lochridge said he filed a complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration about the company. OSHA “promptly referred his safety allegations regarding the Titan submersible to the Coast Guard,” a spokesperson for the agency said Thursday.
The deadly accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration. Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.
But Renata Rojas, a mission specialist for the company, told the Coast Guard the firm was staffed by competent people who wanted to “make dreams come true.” Rojas’ testimony struck a different tone than some of the earlier witnesses.
“I was learning a lot and working with amazing people,” Rojas said. “Some of those people are very hardworking individuals that were just trying to make dreams come true.”
OceanGate suspended its operations after the implosion. The company has no full-time employees currently, but has been represented by an attorney during the hearing.
During the submersible’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about the Titan’s depth and weight as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.
One of the last messages from Titan’s crew to Polar Prince before the submersible imploded stated, “all good here,” according to a visual recreation presented earlier in the hearing.
When the submersible was reported missing, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Four days later, wreckage of the Titan was found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said. No one on board survived.
OceanGate said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. The Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site going back to 2021.
Fred Hagan, seated at left, faces officials while testifying before the Titan marine board of investigation hearing inside the Charleston County Council Chambers, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C. (Corey Connor via AP, Pool)
Attorney Jane Schvets asks a question during the Titan marine board of investigation hearing inside the Charleston County Council Chambers, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C. (Corey Connor via AP, Pool)
Dave Dyer, an engineer based at the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab, departs after testifying at the Titan marine board of investigation hearing inside the Charleston County Council Chambers Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C. (Corey Connor via AP, Pool)
Fred Hagan leaves the chambers after testifying at the Titan marine board of investigation hearing inside the Charleston County Council Chambers, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C. (Corey Connor via AP, Pool)
Renata Rojas, OceanGate mission specialist, wipes tears away during testimony at the Titan marine board formal hearing inside the Charleston County Council Chambers, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C. (Corey Connor via AP, Pool)
Renata Rojas, OceanGate mission specialist, center, pauses during at the Titan marine board formal hearing inside the Charleston County Council Chambers, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C. (Corey Connor via AP, Pool)
Jason Neubauer, board chairman, left, and Thomas Whalen, board member, right, listen during the Titan marine board formal hearing inside the Charleston County Council Chambers, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, in North Charleston, S.C. (Corey Connor via AP, Pool)
This June 2023 United States Coast Guard still frame from video provided by Pelagic Research Services, shows remains of the Titan submersible, center, on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Coast Guard Video courtesy Pelagic Research Services via AP)
In a still from from a video animation provided by the United States Coast Guard an illustration of the Titan submersible, right, is shown near the ocean floor of the Atlantic Ocean, as June 18, 2023 communications between the submersible and the support vessel Polar Prince, not shown, are represented at left. (United States Coast Guard via AP)
This June 2023 United States Coast Guard still frame from video provided by Pelagic Research Services, shows remains of the Titan submersible, center, on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Coast Guard Video courtesy Pelagic Research Services via AP)
Titan submersible testimony to enter fourth day after panel hears of malfunction and discord
Titan submersible testimony to enter fourth day after panel hears of malfunction and discord
This June 2023 image provided by Pelagic Research Services shows remains of the Titan submersible on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. (Pelagic Research Services via AP)
