“It just takes me back to Day One. Going through it, feeling the pain, the funeral and living with it,” he said.
Police on Tuesday identified a 21-year-old man and the 10 people they said he killed when he opened fire inside a crowded Boulder, Colorado, supermarket on Monday.
The victims are Denny Strong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Terri Leiker, 51; Eric Talley, 51; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.
Authorities said Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was from the Denver suburb of Arvada and that he engaged in a shootout with police inside the Boulder store. The suspect was being treated at a hospital and was expected to be booked into the county jail soon.
Investigators have not established a motive, but authorities believe he was the only shooter, Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said.
The shooting in Colorado took place just days after eight people were shot and killed in Atlanta, a parallel to the August 2019 Dayton shooting that took place just hours after a shooting in El Paso.
Green was in the Oregon District the night of the local shooting and held his father as he died.
“The last two shooters amazingly are alive, so maybe they can find out what’s going on, but in my case, we didn’t get closure,” Green said. “So it bothers me. Seeing the stuff that’s happening, and it’s real. It’s become very prevalent.”
He said he’s working to bring change so that other families don’t have to suffer like his.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley released a statement Tuesday offering support to the Boulder community.
“I’m heartbroken by the news of another senseless mass shooting in Boulder,” she said. “My heart goes out to those who were impacted, and all of those in Dayton and communities like it across the country who are still feeling the impacts of their own tragedies. We cannot allow violence like this to be normalized in our country. We must do something.”
We cannot allow violence like this to be normalized in our country. We must do something.
— Nan Whaley (@nanwhaley) March 23, 2021
She told the Dayton Daily News that she reached out to both city leadership in Georgia and Colorado. She said she received calls from other city leaders in the wake of the Dayton shooting, and it was a comfort to her at the time.
“I don’t want them to think they are alone, because they are not,” she said.
Clark County resident Jerri Jackson said the Boulder shooting hit her harder than other mass shootings around the country because her son, Matt McQuinn, was killed in the Aurora, Colorado, theater shootings.
McQuinn was shot and killed along with 11 others during a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” — a Batman movie. Seventy people were injured in the shooting.
Because the shootings took place in Colorado, it brought back bad memories for her.
“My mind went back to the day I was waiting to hear the news on Matt and all the waiting,” she said about when she first heard about Monday’s shooting. “I try to stay away from news coverage about mass shootings, but this one I tended to watch more than others.”
Green said his message to the families suffering losses in the recent shootings is to be together. He said losing a loved one to a tragedy never gets easier.
“Keep your family close by and supported because it is a struggle because you’re still processing it. With the media attention like ours was, it’s kind of hard because you do have media and everybody calling, but if you can, process it,” Green said. “This is a journey, and it doesn’t get easier, it just gets bearable, and there is no time limit.”
Jackson said it’s important for the families to take care of themselves and for the public to honor the victims and not the perpetrator.
“And just remember there are thousands of people that grieve with you, love you, and you’re not alone in this,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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