On March 22, 2021, 10 Americans were killed while shopping at a Boulder King Soopers store by Ahmad Alissa. His defense claimed he was insane during the shooting. It resulted in psychotherapy, until eventually in August 2023, he was declared competent to stand trial. In September 2024 a jury found Ahmad guilty; he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

What has fascinated me about this tragic case is the testimony of progressive mental illness given to the court by his parents. His mother, Khadija Alhidid, described him as a cute, smart child who started changing in 2019. Claiming that people were chasing him, he grew paranoid about being watched. Despite that, a multitude of packages came in the mail, and the parents were never curious about their content. “We didn’t know what he was up to,” Khadija said.

After he came home with a large skinny box, Khadija thought, “perhaps Ahmed is picking up a new musical hobby.” But later, after Ahmad’s brothers brought it down to her because a round jammed in the firearm, she found out it was an assault rifle. In her testimony, the mother admitted that her son, “got crazy. The symptoms got worse during COVID.”

I find the following critical: she didn’t discuss Ahmad with anyone outside the family. In her Syrian community, mental illness is regarded as shameful, and if the community knew he was possessed by a jinn — Arabic for spirit — it would have had negative feedback. Even as his mental picture deteriorated, no one intervened. He openly built an arsenal of weapons and bomb making in his bedroom. They neither sought mental health care, nor reported him to authorities. Everything he did was legal, they told the court.

I have thought a great deal about this, in addition to other killings in our America. The loss of 10 lives might have been avoided if Ahmad was afforded mental health intervention. In so many cases we hear after the fact, we find that the people around perpetrators saw and knew things were not right. And what stands between life and death is often someone saying something, or reporting some suspicious act. The Aurora Theater killings as well as the Columbine High school massacres serve as good local examples of what goes wrong and ends up causing tragic losses of lives.

Tracing James Holmes’ life’s journey one sees alarming red flags before he killed 12 people and injured 70 others. Like Ahmad, Holmes was obsessed with killing. I keep thinking that Holmes’s neighbors must have suspected something rotten was unravelling. Authorities say Holmes spent $15,000 fortifying his arsenal. All online. Psychiatrist William Reid said that Holmes suffered from schizotypal personality disorder. In other words, Holmes was sick and anti-social, but rational.

The two Columbine High killers lived with their parents. It continues to amaze me that the two would hoard ammunition, and modify guns under their parents’ gaze. Or perhaps the parents didn’t care. These White young men were under police observation, but authorities had no inkling of their murderous plots. Ahmad’s family couldn’t imagine him killing people. But why allow him to amass an arsenal in their home? Especially knowing he harbored a jinn?

Can most of these parents be proven culpable of a degree of not intervening before the murderous rampages? I wonder. I have never doubted that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s parents should have been held liable for the Columbine High school killings. If Columbine occurred today, I hope prosecutors would seek to weigh parental negligent non-engagement in their kids’ criminality.

In my opinion, the recurring school and other mass shootings are a reflection of our society’s blindness and pretensions. Blindness to what the people around us are doing and what harm their actions may cause to their neighbors. And pretensions of freedom — that anyone can do what they want even if it’s harmful to many. That anyone can assemble an arsenal without anyone keeping an eye on them or questioning their intentions and possible danger to others, is tragic.

I believe that we are responsible for our neighbors’ and fellow citizens’ well-being. That responsibility necessitates a degree of vigilance and awareness. Ahmad’s, Klebold’s, Harris’ as well as Holmes’ murderous journeys were visible to some. Sadly they turned their gaze away. To avoid many more massacres of the innocent among us, we are obligated not to look away, but to remain engaged and vigilant. We are, I believe, our neighbor’s keeper.

Pius Kamau, M.D., a retired general surgeon, is president of the Aurora-based Africa America Higher Education Partnerships; co-founder of the Africa Enterprise Group and an activist for minority students’ STEM education. He is a National Public Radio commentator, a Huffington Post blogger, a past columnist for Denver dailies and is featured on the podcast, “Never Again.”