‘I Surrender, I’m Naked’: Witness Recounts Arrest of Colorado Alleged Mass Shooter

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa in his booking photo in Boulder, Colo., on March 23, 2021. Boulder Police Department via Getty Images

A worker at the King Soopers market in Boulder, Colorado, where 10 people were shot and killed, recalled how the alleged gunman surrendered to authorities on Monday afternoon.

Maggie Montoya, 25, who works as a pharmaceutical technician at the store, said she was warned about an active shooter in the location, saying everyone “scattered” afterward, while Montoya and a co-worker hid inside a small room.

“I was just imagining the person hopping the counter and just coming in the room,” she told Colorado Public Radio.

An officer said via the store’s loudspeaker: “This is the Boulder Police Department. The entire building is surrounded. I need you to surrender now,” according to video footage from the scene.

The alleged shooter, 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, then said, “I surrender, I’m naked,” according to Montoya’s recollection. There was no immediate response from authorities.

Five minutes later, an officer got on the loudspeaker and demanded Alissa surrender. Twenty minutes later, law enforcement officers entered the building, said Montoya.

The gunman “was still by the pharmacy when they told him to surrender,” Montoya told the radio station. “And he again said, ‘I surrender, I’m naked.’”

Alissa was charged Tuesday with 10 counts of first-degree murder and was shot in the leg by police. Officials have yet to determine a motive for the slayings.

His family, however, said that he was paranoid and suffered from delusions. Classmates and now-deleted social media posts indicated that he was a practicing Muslim who emigrated as a child to the United States from Syria.

“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,” said former classmate and wrestling teammate Dayton Marvel told the Denver Post. “Nobody believed him. We were just all kind of freaked out by it, but nobody did anything about it.”

Marvel added told the Post that Alissa was concerned about others targeting him because he’s a Muslim.

“He would talk about him being Muslim and how if anybody tried anything, he would file a hate crime and say they were making it up,” Marvel said. “It was a crazy deal. I just know he was a pretty cool kid until something made him mad, and then whatever made him mad, he went over the edge—way too far.”

The fatal shooting victims Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; police officer Eric Talley, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.