Biden mourns 10 killed in Boulder and calls for ban on assault weapons

Neven Stanisic’s family fled war-torn Bosnia in the 1990s, said Iva Petrovic, the wife of the reverend at their Denver-area church.

They left “everything” behind, she said, Serbian refugees seeking a safe life in the United States.

Jody Waters brought Beanie Babies to Boulder.

Waters used to co-own a boutique called Applause, then part of Boulder’s downtown Pearl Street Mall pedestrian district, where the plush animals were first sold in Boulder in the 1990s.

Lynn Murray’s husband described her as a brilliant comet who streaked through everyone’s life — but also the anchor of his family, whose grace and beauty seemed to hold everyone in her sway.

“She was very much the center,” John R. Mackenzie said Tuesday. “She was the spiritual guide. She was the awareness and consciousness for all of us. She understood all of us better than ourselves. She knew how to console and how to fix anything and make it better. She was adored.”

ARVADA, Colo. — Maybe he didn't quite fit in at his midsize high school in this Denver suburb, but Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa certainly didn't stand out. One of 11 siblings in a family that emigrated from Raqqa, Syria, two decades ago, Alissa seemed to get along with others in his early teens — a moon-faced boy who wrestled but perhaps wanted for friends.

“He was a pretty chill kid from what I can remember,” said Mark Dorokhov, who said he often ate lunch with Alissa during the short period that Dorokhov attended Arvada West High School. “He wasn’t like a popular kid or anything. And he wasn’t like the high school loser either. He was just kind of in-between. He was like me, I guess.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday that there are indications that 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, who is accused of killing 10 people at a grocery story in Boulder, could have been driven by mental issues “and extreme paranoia” based on the remarks made by his brother.

In an interview with the Daily Beast, Ali Aliwi Alissa said his brother, of Arvada, Colo., had exhibited signs of paranoia — often about imaginary people chasing or following him — for years leading up to the shooting and that his brother has a history of violence and alarming behavior.

Teri Leiker was a longtime King Soopers employee who enjoyed attending University of Colorado sporting events and singing songs from the movie “Frozen,” according to friends who mourned the 51-year-old on social media.

“I am absolutely heartbroken to share the loss of my friend Teri Leiker,” Katie Rinderknecht, a recent graduate of Colorado, which is in Boulder, wrote on Facebook. She said she met Leiker through the university’s chapter of Best Buddies, which connects students with members of the community with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Before he was killed at King Soopers, Denny Stong was training to become a professional pilot.

He had worked long hours stocking shelves since late 2018 to earn money for airplane fuel, said Laura Spicer, the mother of Stong’s close friend. When the coronavirus pandemic began last March, Stong added a border to his Facebook picture that read: “I can’t stay home, I am a grocery store worker” — an homage to essential workers who have risked their health throughout the crisis.

Erika Mahoney tweeted a photo from her wedding day, her arm laced through her father’s, her face looking up at him adoringly as he appears to be holding back tears before he walks her down the aisle.

The moment captured on a bright, happy day makes the news she shares with it that much more devastating.