Syrian-born Boulder shooter described as “anti-social” and “paranoid”

Hours after a tearful police chief named the only suspect in the Boulder shooting, further information on Ahmad Alissa is continuing to come out.

Officials said Alissa lived “most of his life in the United States” during a Tuesday morning press conference. Authorities are looking into his background, but did not release additional information on his past. His Facebook page, which has now been deleted, said he lived in Syria until moving to the United States when he was about three years old.

“born in Syria 1999 came to the USA in 2002,” he wrote on his Facebook profile. “I like wrestling and informational documentaries that’s me.”

NBC’s Pete Williams said on MSNBC the suspect’s family members revealed he “suffered from fairly severe mental problems, paranoia, thought people were always chasing him.” Williams said there were no known “records of encounters between him and law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, the suspect’s 34-year-old brother said that Alissa “a history of violence” and was “deeply disturbed.” He was also described by his sibling, Ali Alissa, as “anti-social”, according to The Daily Beast.

The shooting at King Soopers in Boulder, Colorado left 10 people dead.

The victims are Denny Strong, 20, Neven Stanasic, 23, Rikki Olds, 25, Tralona Bartkowiak, 49, Suzanne Fountain, 59, Teri Leiker, 51, Officer Talley, 51, Kevin Mahoney, 61, Lynn Murray, 62, and Jody Waters, 65.

Police were called for an active shooter inside the grocery store at 3600 Table Mesa Drive at about 2:40 p.m. local time where a grocery store turned into a bloodbath during the country’s most recent mass shooting. Al Issa of Arvada exchanged gunfire with officers, killing Talley, police said in a Tuesday morning press conference. He was also injured in the gunfight and taken to a local hospital, where he was in stable condition Tuesday.

According to the suspect’s brother, in high school, he would say he was “being chased, someone is behind him, someone is looking for him.”

“When he was having lunch with my sister in a restaurant, he said, ‘People are in the parking lot, they are looking for me.’ She went out, and there was no one. We didn’t know what was going on in his head,” Ali Alissa told the Daily Beast.

Some of Alissa’s Facebook posts reflect the paranoia and mental health issues his family has mentioned to reporters. Alissa wrote in July 2019, “Yeah if these racist islamophobic people would stop hacking my phone and let me have a normal life I probably could.”

He wrote in March 2019, “Just curious what are the laws about phone privacy because I believe. my old school (a west) was hacking my phone. Anyone know if I can do anything through the law?”

He added in a comment about his belief he was being stalked by his high school, “I believe part racism for sure. But I also believe someone spread rumors about me which are false and maybe set that off.”

Ali Alissa told the Daily Beast his brother was once outgoing, but turned anti-social after he was bullied in high 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.”

Authorities said they spoke to Alissa in the hospital, but didn’t immediately reveal any of the details of their interview or identify a motive.

“We don’t have the answer for that yet,” said Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty during a Tuesday press conference.