Lawyers are set to deliver closing arguments Friday in the trial of a mentally ill man who fatally shot 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in 2021.
Ahmad Alissa, who has schizophrenia, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the attack at the store in the college town of Boulder. His attorneys acknowledge he was the shooter but say he was legally insane at the time of the shooting.
Mental illness is not the same thing as insanity under the law. In Colorado, insanity is legally defined as having a mental disease so severe it is impossible for a person to tell the difference between right and wrong.
During two weeks of trial, the families of those killed saw graphic surveillance and police body camera video. 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. A pharmacist who took cover testified she heard Alissa say "This is fun" at least three times.
Several members of Alissa's family, who immigrated to the United States from Syria, testified that starting a few years earlier he became withdrawn and spoke less.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.
