Photo: AP Photo/David Zalubowski Officer Eric Talley, an 11-year veteran of the Boulder Police Department, was the first to arrive at the scene of a mass shooting at a King Soopers grocery store the afternoon of March 22 and the first of 10 to be killed.
A Catholic, Talley often stopped by St Martin de Porres Church just across the street from the store “and participated in its events, even though he wasn’t a parishioner there”, Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila said.
“St Martin de Porres, the patron of the parish, was someone who experienced tragedy and hardship in his life, and so, we ask for his intercession in these difficult circumstances, that God would bring good out of this great evil,” he added in a statement issued late March 23.
Archbishop Aquila said he was “deeply saddened by the tragic and sudden deaths” of the 10 shooting victims.
“I have been praying for all those impacted by this senseless act of violence and want to express my spiritual closeness to them,” he said.
Police arrested 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Arvada, Colorado, charging him with 10 counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.