- Ten people were killed after a gunman opened fire at a Boulder, Colorado, grocery store on Monday.
- Eric Talley, 51, was among them. He was said to be the first police officer on the scene.
- The
shooting suspect has been identified as 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Arvada, Colorado.
The police officer killed in Monday's mass shooting at a Colorado grocery store was a father of seven who had been training to operate drones, because he thought they would be safer, the officer's father said.
Eric Talley, 51, was the first officer to respond to calls of a shooting at the King Soopers store in Boulder, the city's police chief, Maris Herold, told a press conference on Monday.
Talley was among 10 people killed in the shooting. The other victims have been identified 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.
Police said the shooting suspect is 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Arvada, Colorado, though a motive is unknown. He has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder.
Boulder's police chief Maris Herold said Talley was a "very kind man" who went into policing to pursue a "higher calling."
"He loved this community and he's everything that policing deserves and needs," she said. "He cared about this community. He cared about the Boulder Police Department. He cared about his family and he was willing to die to protect others."
Talley's father, Homer Talley, told 9News that it "didn't surprise" him that his son was the first officer on the scene.
-Boulder Police Dept. (@boulderpolice) March 23, 2021
Eric Talley recently had a conversation with his father in which he told him he would lay down his life for any of his fellow officers, his dad told KDVR.
"He was a man of heart who loved his job," Homer Talley told KDVR.
Homer Talley told KDVR that his son had a master's degree in computer science but decided to become a police officer at the age of 40. He told 9News his son was training to become a drone operator because he believed it would be safer.
-Kirstin (@Roozersmom) March 23, 2021
Talley was a father of seven children, ages 7 to 20, and a husband to a wife who was his "rock," Homer Talley told KDVR.
"He had a great sense of humor - he was a prankster," Talley's father told 9News. "He loved his family more than anything."
Law-enforcement agencies in the area took part in a procession to honor the fallen officer.
Talley is the sixth Boulder police officer to die in the line of duty. The most recent was Beth Haynes in 1994, according to 9News.
At least six other mass shootings have happened within a 40-mile radius of the Boulder shooting, including the Columbine High School shooting of 1999 and a shooting during a screening of "The Dark Knight" at a movie theater in 2012.
The Boulder shooting is the second highly public mass shooting in America in less than a week, following the Atlanta-area shooting spree on March 16 that killed eight people.