A LOCAL police officer was the first to arrive at the scene of a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, and the first of 10 to be killed during a shooting rampage at the store.
Officer Eric Talley was an 11-year veteran of the Boulder Police Department and a father of seven, aged between 5 and 18.
The horrific mass shooting, the second in a week, has prompted U.S. President Biden to urge Congress to pass gun safety measures.
“My heart is broken. I cannot explain how beautiful he was and what a devastating loss this is to so many,” Officer Talley’s sister Kirstin tweeted about her big brother, who was 51.
“Fly high my sweet brother. You always wanted to be a pilot (damn color blindness). Soar.”
Talley’s father, Homer Talley, told a local TV station his son “was a man of heart who loved his job,” was a good father and in a recent conversation the two had said “he would lay down his life for any of the officers that he worked with.”
Officer Talley was a man of faith and “believed in Jesus Christ,” his father said.
Police arrested 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Arvada, Colorado.
He was treated at a local hospital for an injury he sustained, but has since been booked into the Boulder County Jail. He was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and so far his motive for the shooting rampage remains unknown.
Law enforcement officials identified the nine others who died as: Denny Stong, 20, Neven Stanisic, 23, Rikki Olds, 25, Tralona Bartkowiak, 49, Suzanne Fountain, 59, Teri Leiker, 51, Kevin Mahoney, 61, Lynn Murray, 62, and Jody Waters, 65. Some were customers and some were store employees.
The Denver Post daily newspaper reported the suspect, who witnesses said was wearing black and shooting “a rifle of some kind,” began shooting outside one of the store’s entrances and then came into the store shooting. One witness said he didn’t say a word.
Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold told reporters at a news conference that Talley “loved this community and he’s everything that policing deserves and needs.”
“He cared about the Boulder Police Department,” she said. “He cared about his family and he was willing to die to protect others.”
Mass shootings have happened in Colorado before.
On April 20, 1999, students Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris at Columbine High school in the Denver suburb of Littleton went on a shooting rampage, killing 12 students and one teacher and injuring 21 others before taking their own lives.
On July 20, 2012, at a theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora, mass shooter James Holmes, now 33, killed 12 people and injured 70 others.
He was not tried until nearly three years later. He confessed to the shooting but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
In August 2015 he was given 12 life sentences, one for every person he killed.
Holmes also received 3,318 years for the attempted murders of those he wounded and for rigging his apartment with explosives, which, according to news reports, were supposed to go off when the front door was opened.
Holmes reportedly they would kill police when they searched his place, but the explosives never detonated.
