A King Soopers supermarket worker spoke out about her experience during the mass shooting Monday that left 10 dead.
Maggie Montoya, 25, has been an employee at King Soopers pharmacy for the past three years, according to CPR News. Montoya had been administrating COVID-19 vaccines to people since 10:30 a.m. on the day of the shooting, the outlet reported.
Survivor Maggie Montoya wonders what her experience did to her parents.
“I needed to call them and tell them what was going on, but I can’t imagine the fear of hearing your child say, ‘There’s an active shooter. I love you. I’ll text you if I can.”https://t.co/IKYZbPHb6v
— Andrew Kenney (@AndyKnny) March 23, 2021
The first shots rang out around 2:30 p.m.
“I just heard our store manager yell, ‘Active shooter,’ and we all scattered,” Montoya told the outlet.
Montoya and another pharmacist hid in a room where they had been administering the vaccine, CPR News reported. She said she hid behind a desk and called her parents after securing the door to the small room. (RELATED: ‘The World Lost A Great Soul’: Boulder Community Floods Slain Police Officer’s Car With Flowers)
She described listening to the music playing over the loud speaker and hearing rounds of gunshots intermittently to the outlet.
“I honestly thought everybody was dead,” Montoya told CPR News. “I didn’t hear anybody running.”
Meanwhile, the Boulder Police Department had surrounded the building.
“This is the Boulder Police Department,” Montoya recalled hearing. “The entire building is surrounded. I need you to surrender now.”
“He said, ‘I surrender, I’m naked,'” Montoya told the outlet.
20 minutes passed before a police squad entered the building.
“And he again said, ‘I surrender, I’m naked,'” Montoya said.
A livestream at the time showed the suspected shooter, now identified as Ahmad Alissa, being led out of the King Soopers by police around 3:30 p.m., roughly one hour after the shooting began.
Alissa has since been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder.