Ahmad Alissa Boulder shooting victims identified. Colorado authorities reveal the names of the ten individuals gunned down at a King Soopers grocery store outlet- as a nation attempts to take stock of yet another mass shooting tragedy.
The faces of tragedy revealed….
A 61-year-old father who walked his journalist daughter down the aisle last year, three store workers and a retired magazine photo director and a responding veteran police officer- the father of seven – are among the 10 victims who were gunned down in the Boulder grocery store massacre.
The victims were shot dead at the King Soopers outlet in Boulder, Colorado on Monday afternoon when the gunman, since identified by police as 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, aka Ahmad Alissa opened gunfire.
Authorities identified the victims, who they said ranged in age from 20 to 65.
They include Denny Strong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowika, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Boulder Police Officer Eric Talley, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; Jody Waters, 65.
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Boulder Police officer Eric Talley, 51, was also among those killed after he responded to the shooting.
California-based reporter Erika Mahoney posted a tribute to her father Kevin as she revealed he was among the victims of the massacre.
‘I am heartbroken to announce that my Dad, my hero, Kevin Mahoney, was killed in the King Soopers shooting in my hometown of Boulder, CO,’ she wrote alongside photo of him walking her down the aisle at her wedding last year in May according to the dailymail.
‘My dad represents all things Love. I’m so thankful he could walk me down the aisle last summer. I am now pregnant. I know he wants me to be strong for his granddaughter. Thank you to the Boulder PD for being so kind through this painful tragedy.’
Lynn Murray, a mother-of-two, was a retired NYC magazine photo director who had worked for Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Glamour before relocating to Colorado to raise her children.
Her family have revealed she was at the store at the time of the shooting to fill an Instacart order.
‘She was an amazing woman, probably the kindest person I’ve ever known,’ her husband John told the New York Times.
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‘Our lives are ruined, our tomorrows are forever filled with a sorrow that is unimaginable. She was one of the greatest people you’d ever want to know: hard working, loving and compassionate, caring, went out of her way to make sure everyone else had a smile on their face.
‘I just want her to be remembered as just as this amazing, amazing comet spending 62 years flying across the sky.’
Rikki Olds, who worked at the store as an assistant front-end manager throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, had been employed there since graduating high school.
She was raised by her grandmother after her mother abandoned her and her siblings as a young child.
Olds hadn’t seen her grandmother in person until recently given the young woman was a frontline worker during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They saw each other again only after Olds’ grandmother was vaccinated.
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The young woman’s family shared several tributes on social media as the grieving relatives called for the gunman to ‘burn in hell’.
‘We lost our beloved Rikki Olds to the monster who shot up the king soopers in Boulder CO yesterday may his rotten a** fry and burn in hell,’ her aunt Lori Olds said.
Teri Leiker, whose boyfriend also worked at the store but survived, had worked there for 30 years.
Leiker’s friend, Lexi Knutson, said the veteran employee loved working at the store.
‘She loved going to work and enjoyed everything about being there,’ Knutson told Reuters.
‘Her boyfriend and her had been good friends and began dating in the fall of 2019. He was working yesterday too. He is alive.’
Knuston said she believed Leiker’s job had come through a special needs work program.
Friends said Denny Stong, who was the youngest victim, was training to be a pilot. He also worked at the store where the shooting unfolded.
His Facebook profile photo has the caption: ‘I can’t stay home. I am a grocery store worker’ in reference to the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘My heart breaks. My son’s best friend’
‘My heart breaks. My son’s best friend, Denny Stong was killed at the Boulder King Soopers yesterday. He was 21 and was training to become a pilot,’ Laura Cole Spicer wrote in a Facebook tribute.
Tralona Bartkowiak ran a small clothing and artisan store in Boulder and had recently become engaged.
Her store mainly sold yoga and festival attire. Bartkowiak had, in recent years, regularly attended festivals like Burning Man to advertise her business.
Jody Walters, a mother-of-two and grandmother, described herself as a ‘creative entrepreneur’.
Suzanne Fountain was a licensed Medicare agent and financial counselor.
The gunman first opened fire in the parking lot of the store before going inside where witnesses described him shooting at staff and shoppers.
Survivors hid in food aisles and sheltered while trying to listen to which direction he was coming from, and if he was reloading what they described as an AR-15 rifle.
The terror went on for around 20 minutes before Ahmad Alissa was taken into custody.
Talley was among the first officers on the scene following reports of the active shooting.
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In the aftermath of the massacre, Talley’s father said the slain officer had been learning to become a drone operator so he could step away from the front line.
‘He didn’t want to put his family through something like this,’ his father Homer Talley said.
Talley is survived by his his wife and their seven children. Their youngest child is seven years old.
‘He loved his kids and his family more than anything,’ his father said.
Talley had been working as an officer for just over a decade after enrolling in the Aurora’s Police Training Academy when he was 40 years old. Talley, who had a master’s degree, had quit his stable IT job in 2010 after one of his close friends died in a DUI crash.
These are the faces of tragedy. The faces of yet another mass shooting. The new batch of victims less than a week after an Atlanta gunman slaughtered eight individuals, including six Asian workers. These are the faces of an unrelenting diabolical America, subservient, bought and paid for by an ever supply of gun violence and indefinable American angst and exceptionalism …on your TV set.
