A suspect
took the lives of at least 10 people — including a police officer — on Monday afternoon in a mass killing at a Boulder, Colorado, grocery store.
Eyewitnesses to the mass murder recalled the moment the suspect, who remains unidentified at the time of this writing, silently stormed the store and began firing indiscriminately on those inside.
What are the details?
According to the Denver Post, the shooting began outside one of the store’s two entrances.
A bystander who filmed some of the mayhem noted a Toyota RAV4 that was “parked haphazardly at the base of an entrance ramp, its headlights on.”
“Two roommates who were buying pizza at the self-checkout said that after hearing the initial noise, they saw a gunman, clad in black, enter with a rifle of some kind,” the outlet noted. “He said nothing before raising the gun, they said.”
One of the roommates, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the suspect “just came in and started shooting.”
The other added that the suspect “let off a couple of shots, then was silent, and then he let off a couple more.”
“He wasn’t spraying,” the eyewitness said.
The two split off in different directions and hid while the suspect continued to pick people off.
“Some shoppers saw immediate echoes of previous mass shootings, from Columbine to the Aurora movie theater shooting,” the Post noted.
James Bentz, who was inside the store when the gunman opened fire, said that it felt like he always imagined that he would “be in a situation like this” at some point in his life.
Bentz said that he heard a series of shots and then found himself in a stampede to safety.
Bentz said he found an exit at the rear of the store and jumped off a loading dock to run to safety. Amid the chaos, he said he witnessed younger people helping older people out of the store and off the same loading dock he’d jumped from while fleeing.
Sarah Moonshadow and her 21-year-old son were inside the store when they heard shots ringing out. The two immediately dove to the ground for cover and “Spiderman-crawled on the floor out of there.”
“We just ran,” Moonshadow’s son said.
When they exited the store, they saw a body on the pavement, but continued running to safety.
Neven Sloan and his wife, Quinlyn, were inside the store shopping when they heard the shots. Though the two were in separate areas of the store, they found one another and ran to safety. After Neven made sure his wife made it out of the store safely, he went back inside to assist others.
“He said he drew on his religion, which teaches a ‘message (that) we can go anytime,'” the outlet noted.
What else?
In a late-night conference, Boulder police said that the incident is still under investigation. A suspect is in custody at the time of this reporting.
Another eyewitness said that he saw police escorting a handcuffed, heavyset, bearded man from the store following the shooting. The man, he said, looked to be wearing only underwear and had suffered an apparent injury to his leg. It is unclear at the time of this reporting whether that man is the suspect in custody.
“He was the only person who came out of there that I saw handcuffed,” the eyewitness said. “Everyone else who came out had their hands up; they looked liked they were hostages or victims.”
