BOULDER, Colo. — A judge ruled on Friday that the man accused of shooting and killing 10 people at the Table Mesa King Soopers in Boulder over two years ago is competent to stand trial.
Ahmad Alissa, 24, faces 115 separate counts – including 10 counts of first-degree murder and 47 counts of attempted first-degree murder – in the March 22, 2021, shootings that took the lives of a Boulder police officer and nine others.
The case against the suspect has been on hold since December 2021, when a judge ruled he was not competent based on evaluations from doctors at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo.
The case will now proceed to a preliminary hearing set for Nov. 14 after Judge Ingrid Bakke agreed that Alissa was competent after a two-day hearing last week.
In her ruling, Bakke noted that all of Alissa's treatment providers and evaluators agree that his competency is "tenuous" and that he would likely "decompensate and regress" rapidly if he stops taking his medication.
"The Court takes particular note of the fact that, in June 2023, Defendant specifically said that if he were found to be competent and is returned to jail that he would stop taking his medication," the order says. "Defendant backed up this assertion by refusing to take his medication during his brief stay at the Boulder County Jail while awaiting his appearance for this restoration hearing."
Bakke urged the Pueblo facility in the order to maintain custody of Alissa even though she cannot order it, because the facility is better equipped to force him to take his medication.
"Even under court order, the Defendant has refused to take his medication unless there is the ability for that facility to physically force him to take his medication," the order says. "It is this Court’s understanding the Boulder County Jail does not have the qualified staff and equipment to force the Defendant to take his medication if he refuses."
The district attorney's office said Friday that the Pueblo facility has granted its request to maintain custody of Alissa while the case is litigated, and the Boulder County Sheriff's Office will transport him for court dates.
This a process 9NEWS Psychology Expert Dr. Max Wachtel has seen hundreds of times before. Wachtel says there's a rare possibility the suspect could be declared incompetent again if the shooter stops taking his medication.
“If he’s incompetent he would get sent back to the mental health hospital, so kind of be like starting over from square one,” Dr. Wachtel said.
Rikki Olds, one of the victims, was working at the King Soopers at the time of the shooting. Her uncle, Bob Olds, says she had a special way of brightening shoppers' days.
Olds said he was expecting to know if the suspected shooter was competent by Tuesday or Wednesday.
“It’s been a long anxious week and a half, ya know, since that competency review hearing,” Olds said.“I don’t describe it as excitement, but it’s a step forward toward some justice. We’re at like stage one, ya know, two and a half plus years later. That’s a long time."
The 20th Judicial Attorney's Office said in August that Alissa had been restored to competency. Prosecutors said the Colorado Department of Human Services determined the suspect is now competent to proceed in the case.
"According to CDHS, it is because of 'consistent medication compliance' and the recent addition of a new drug that Defendant is now competent," the District Attorney's Office wrote in a court filing last month.
A forensic psychologist who performed competency evaluations for Alissa at the Pueblo facility said he told her in August that he had experienced hallucinations on the day of the attack.
The psychologist, Dr. Loandra Torres, said in her testimony in Boulder District Court that Alissa told her he bought guns to commit a mass shooting and planned to attempt suicide by cop.
The 10 people killed in the shooting were:
- Denny Stong, 20
- Neven Stanisic, 23
- Rikki Olds, 25
- Tralona Bartkowiak, 49
- Suzanne Fountain, 59
- Teri Leiker, 51
- Officer Eric Talley, 51
- Kevin Mahoney, 61
- Lynn Murray, 62
- Jody Waters, 65
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