My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this tragedy. I include families and friends of the dead and injured as victims, as their lives are forever and tragically changed. I will also pray for the "alleged" (I hate that we use that word when he turns himself in with blood on his hands) perpetrator, but only that he realise the full gravity of what he's done. I do not ask for forgiveness for his soul, I just pray for him to come to terms with what he's done. I pray for HIS family. This is not their fault. Whatever you believe, please pray for the people whose lives are affected by the choices of this man.
Why Colorado? Why do we have to set the precedent for these things? Columbine was the deadliest school shooting for a long time. Now this attack on movie goers in Aurora. My heart hurts for the people who went to see this movie at The Town Center at Aurora yesterday. I wanted to go to the midnight showing here, but didn't get to it. Much like when Alana, Alex, many other friends and I watched the midnight of Harry Potter 7, I want to have a Batman movie marathon before I see The Dark Knight Rises.
My good friend Mikeal Hocevar and I have some experience, some familiarity, with that particular mall. Mike was the store manager at the Finish Line store in that mall. We opened that store with him and we also released the original Jordan Defining Moments package. Some of the customers of that store were scary. Parts of Aurora are dangerous. Ironically, parts of Aurora are incredibly affluent. Only once in my life did I think I was going to get shot. It was in Aurora, however it wasn't at the mall. While neither of us can be sure, both Mike and I are pretty sure that the dude who was confronting us had his hand on the butt of a gun under his coat. There are a series of circumstances the lead to this conclusion and I won't go into them on here. I'm really just trying to paint a picture of Aurora for those who don't know it.
Aurora is the third most populous city in Colorado behind Denver and Colorado Springs. It is a suburb of Denver, on the east-southeast side of the metro area. It has grown positively in the last 10 years. Aurora has a reputation for being full of gangs and gang bangers. Many who know of Aurora, but don't live there, would tell you that being outside after dark in the town is unsafe. I have to be honest, compared to a few of the towns I've been through, it's not terrible, but not great. I lived in Denver for a year, but was less than a quarter mile from the line between Aurora and Denver. I heard sirens 2-3 nights a week. We lived in a beautiful gated community.
I am not a psychologist, and I have very little knowledge of psychology. The gunman seems to have many indications of psychopathy. This is another reason why my mind has drawn so many parallels to the attack on Columbine High School in 1999. Fortunately (?), this person was caught and can be questioned. If his mental health is as fragile as is being hypothesized, we may never know the answers.
A big part of me wants to treat this like a terrorist attack. This person acted alone and it seems it was totally random. There is no appearance that this is a wider conspiracy against people choosing to see this movie. I will still see this movie, and I hope everyone else who wanted to see it will go see it, too.
This is a bit disjointed. Prayers for the families affected by this. Be safe, tell your loved ones you love them.
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