Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa is the 21-year-old Arvada, Colorado, man who was identified as the suspect in the mass shooting spree in Boulder that killed ten people.
Alissa was injured in a gunfight with police, which killed Boulder Police Officer Eric Talley. Police said in an arrest affidavit Alissa did not say anything to officers at the scene, but did ask for his mother. According to police, Alissa stripped off his clothes inside the store and was bleeding from his leg when he was arrested. The rifle, a handgun, body armor and his clothes were strewn about where he was taken into custody along with a substantial amount of blood, according to the arrest affidavit.
Alissa’s brother, Ali Alissa, said his brother was deeply disturbed, anti-social, and paranoid.
Some of his Facebook posts reflect his paranoia and mental health issues.
In July 2019, he said, “Yeah if these racist islamophobic people would stop hacking my phone and let me have a normal life I probably could.”
His brother said he was bullied in school.
“[It was] not at all a political statement, it’s mental illness,” he said. “The guy used to get bullied a lot in high school, he was like an outgoing kid but after he went to high school and got bullied a lot, he started becoming anti-social.”
A former wrestling teammate, Dayton Marvel, said Alissa was short-tempered and scary.
“His senior year, during the wrestle-offs to see who makes varsity, he actually lost his match and quit the team and yelled out in the wrestling room that he was like going to kill everybody,” Marvel added. “Nobody believed him. We were just all kind of freaked out by it, but nobody did anything about it.”
Marvel said Alissa was often concerned he was being targeted for his Muslim faith. He said he was “pretty cool” until someone made him mad.
Another wrestling teammate said Alissa often talked about people following him. Thinking it was a joke, there was never anyone where Alissa was pointing.
A police investigation revealed Alissa purchased an AR 556 pistol March 16. He was found on the scene with a rifle and a semi-automatic handgun, his affidavit said.
Officials said Alissa lived most of his life in the United States. His now deleted Facebook page says he was born in Syria and moved to the U.S. when he was approximately three.
Alissa went to Arvada West High School and graduated in 2018, where he was a member of the wrestling team, and he also studied at Metropolitan State University in Denver. He began attending the college for computer engineering. He had a prospective graduation date of 2022, he wrote on his Facebook page.
He also was a fan of mixed martial arts and would post often about professional MMA, jiu jitsu and the UFC.
Alissa said he was not very political in a post in 2016 before the presidential election. But he at times shared anti-Trump posts. In June 2019, he shared a post from PBS NewsHour about myths about immigration and the U.S. economy and added, “Why refugees and immigrants are good for America.” On May 1, 2019, he shared a YouTube video from an anti-abortion group and wrote, “Abortion is disgusting.”
In 2018, Alissa shared a post about the possibility of the existence of a tape of Trump using racial slurs.
“Even if they released the tapes his base would probably throw a party for him. He could do whatever hew ants and his base would still support him regardless of what he says or does.”
About Trump’s approach to refugees, he wrote, “Trumps such a dick.”
After Trump’s election in 2016: “Regardless of political affiliation, I think it says a lot that one party has had the first minority president and the first women who might be our next president. Trump won, only time can tell what will happen other than that I will remain optimistic.”
He posted a lot about Islam.
In March 2019, Alissa shared a post about the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shooting, posting a meme that said, “The Muslims at the. #christchurch mosque were not the victims of a single shooter. They were the victims of the entire Islamophobia industry that vilified them.”
His posts also included homophobic slurs. He wrote in March 2019, “God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve just saying.”
The complete article can be found at Heavy.
