Former CSU student endures effects of “the system” months after being acquitted of attempted murder

Abdirahman Ahmed pulled out his handgun when a group of men knocked his younger brother to the ground during a brawl in downtown Fort Collins.

Fearing for his brother’s life, Ahmed pulled the trigger after they knocked his brother down again. The bullet struck one of the men from the other group in his back — he dropped to the ground, but survived the injury.

Both groups scattered from the intersection in busy Old Town Fort Collins and police arrested Ahmed, setting off a cascade of irrevocable consequences for the 22-year-old economics student.

The Oct. 29, 2020, arrest and subsequent trial for attempted second-degree murder derailed Ahmed’s life — even after he was acquitted of all criminal charges — and forced him to see the criminal justice system in a new and negative light. He felt he was treated differently as a Black man than the other people involved in the fight, some of whom used racist slurs as the case was investigated.

Seven months after he was found not guilty, he’s still waiting for his life to return to normal and dealing with the consequences of actions a jury decided were not a crime.

“I never really thought about the system in any way,” he said. “None of my family had ever been in trouble, so it was something completely new to me. You can watch TV shows and think you know something, but once you go into it, it’s just something you’ve never seen before.”

Colorado State University officials kicked Ahmed out of school. Unable to work because of the arrest, he moved back into his parents’ Commerce City home. Even after being found not guilty in December, his mugshot and stories by two news outlets remain top search results for his name. He’s still waiting to seal the case and clear his record, which could be delayed for months while prosecutors appeal a decision the judge made at trial.

Criminal trials that end in not guilty verdicts don’t immediately result in a return to normalcy for the defendant, said Doug Richards, Ahmed’s attorney and a former prosecutor. In the movies, everyone emerges from the courthouse, hugs and walks away while happy music plays, he said.

“But in real life it doesn’t end like that,” Richards said. “It goes on for a long time.”

Self-defense?

Ahmed, who goes by the name Kyrie, legally bought his gun in 2020 after watching the protests of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. He felt unsafe as a Black man, especially after a confrontation with a group of people at a Fort Collins basketball court.

At trial, Ahmed and his defense team argued that he was acting in defense of himself and his brother, who suffered a broken jaw and had to have his mouth wired shut.

Ahmed’s attorneys, Richards and Madalia Maaliki, said Ahmed fired his gun at the ground and the bullet ricocheted and struck the victim in the back. Several eyewitnesses also said Ahmed either fired into the ground or the air, according to transcripts of trial testimony.

“I thought my brother was going to die,” Ahmed said in an interview. “I thought both of us were going to get seriously hurt or die that night.”

The prosecutors and police handling the case saw it differently. The lead detective conceded at trial that one of the men in the other group started the fight without physical provocation, but prosecutors said Ahmed’s decision to fire his gun was disproportionate to the threat.

Police did not conduct ricochet analysis before the trial because investigators on the case believed video showed Ahmed fire while the gun was level.

“In this case, he fired a handgun in the middle of Old Town Fort Collins on a fairly crowded evening and that is an incredibly dangerous action to take,” Eighth Judicial District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin said in an interview. “Whether other people had started the fight or not, bringing a handgun to a fist fight and then firing that gun at someone is something that we’re, of course, going to take incredibly seriously.”

Ahmed also said someone in the other group used a racist slur during the fight.

The man whom investigators said started the fight testified at trial that he didn’t remember using a racist slur that night, but said he did not have a problem generally saying the slur. He and another person in his group said it multiple times while being recorded at the police department the night of the fight, according to trial testimony.

The use of racist language during the fight and in court concerned the judge on the case, who admonished the prosecutors.

“And (Deputy District Attorney Brent Kelly) gets up here and tells me that he — that this prosecution, this district attorney — is not condoning racism,” Larimer County District Judge Juan Villasenor said in court, according to a transcript. “Well, it sure feels like it. It sure feels like it when you are promoting a prosecution in which two of the main players, you know, were openly and plainly racist for no reason. For no reason.”

McLaughlin said he was offended by the use of that word by members of the other group, but said racist language did not excuse the decision to fire a gun.

“We don’t get to choose our victims in a case,” the district attorney said. “Not every victim is a nun or a nurse.”

None of the other people involved in the fight faced criminal charges, which Ahmed felt was unfair. The lead detective on the case said at trial that he didn’t charge the man who started the fight because he felt that the man had learned his lesson because his friend got shot.

When the judge read the jury’s verdict — not guilty on all counts — Ahmed broke down in sobs.

“Finally, it all kinda came out,” he said. “A weight was gone.”

The fallout

Eight months after the Dec. 13 verdict, Ahmed is still waiting for life to start again.

He took a job with a family member’s company answering phones and doing administrative tasks. He’s tried applying for other jobs, like driving for UberEats, but the charges on his record always get in the way.

“If he wants to get a job or continue his education, he has this thing on his record — attempted murder,” Richards said. “He has to start every conversation with that.”

Ahmed hopes to return to school and resume his dreams of working in finance.

For Ahmed, it’s been difficult watching his family struggle through the trial and the aftermath. His parents moved to Colorado from Somalia for him and his five younger siblings to have a better life.