A man on trial for shooting dead 10 people inside a Boulder, Colorado supermarket in 2021 was making light of the murder and mayhem he caused, according to witnesses testifying in his trial.
Aliwi Alissa is on trial for murder after killing 10 people at a King Soopers grocery store. Witnesses in court said his behavior was absolutely chilling. Pharmacist Sarah Chen told the court that she could hear Alissa yelling, “This is fun, this is fun.”
Years of wrangling over whether Alissa is mentally competent to stand trial has delayed this case which finally started last week, and is expected to conclude by the end of September. Alissa is trying to get off with a not guilty by reason of insanity plea, but there is no dispute that he is the one who shot the gun and killed nearly a dozen shoppers. After the massacre, he was apparently diagnosed with “treatment-resistant schizophrenia.”
Alissa’s lawyers say their client was suffering hallucinations of screaming voices, and that he was seeing people that weren’t there, and believed he was being pursued. They say he should be judged not guilty because he did not know right from wrong when he took out his gun to shoot.
The insanity defense is only rarely successful in criminal court cases. Contrary to popular misconception, having hallucinations or being judged mentally ill is not enough to be acquitted as insane. The legal test for sanity for the purposes of criminal trials is whether the defendant understood the difference between right and wrong at the time of the shooting, regardless of whether he was hallucinating or otherwise mentally ill.
Alissa is facing 10 counts of first-degree murder, several other counts of attempted murder, and a host of other offenses related to illegal high-capacity ammunition magazines banned in Colorado.
He started the shooting spree in the parking lot but then went inside the store to target other shoppers. Witnesses described Alissa’s demeanor as creepy, and said he appeared to be “hunting” victims. Investigating cops say Alissa conducted research on how to carry out a mass shooting before he did it.
It is not clear whether the insanity plea will work; a judge last fall already judged Alissa fit to stand trial.
