Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, the gunman in the mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado, was known to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) with ties to another person under investigation.
The New York Times reported Tuesday evening: “The suspect’s identity was previously known to the F.B.I. because he was linked to another individual under investigation by the bureau, according to law enforcement officials.”
Also reported by the New York Times, Mr. Alissa, while a senior in Arvada West High School, was convicted in 2018 of a misdemeanor assault against another student in a classroom. He told the police at the time, “it was in retaliation for insults and ethnic taunts.” Fellow students recall Mr. Alissa as having a fierce temper that flared in response to setbacks or slights.
The Denver Post reported: Arvada police Detective Dave Snelling also confirmed the local department had at least two interactions with Alissa over the past several years, including cases of simple assault and criminal mischief, though additional details weren’t immediately available.
Snelling would not say whether local police had received any warnings or complaints about Alissa recently, however, and instead deferred the question to the F.B.I.
Mr. Alissa’s brother told the Daily Beast, he is mentally ill, paranoid, and antisocial.
Investigators on Tuesday were trying to determine what motivated a 21-year-old man, charged in the shooting at a Boulder, Colo., grocery store, to take the lives of 10 people in the second mass shooting in the United States in less than a week.
F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray testified earlier this month that he did not have enough resources to deal with all the country’s threats.