Aurora theater victims search for peace
One shotgun, one automatic assault rifle, two Glock pistols and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition left 12 homicide victims, 70 injured, and about 800 with questions and fear.
On July 20, 2012, people filled the seats of the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colo., to watch the premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises.” None of these people walked away the same as when they walked in.
Theaters eight and nine, along with a few others, were showing the midnight premiere. Both theaters hold about 400 people and both rooms were sold out. Around 12:25 a.m., about 20 minutes into the movie, the gunman entered theater nine through an outside exit and the tragedy began.
“It all started with the launch of the tear gas bomb and I didn’t know what it was. I thought someone had just launched some buzzing toy into the air so I was kind of annoyed by it. I thought it was a joke,” said Jordan Witt, who was in theater nine. “I can still remember almost everything from that night quite vividly. I guess the image that I always have in my mind is the image of peering between the seats trying to figure out what was happening and looking ahead of me to see that my friend was clutching his leg and yelling out in pain.”
Witt is a freshman studying international relations at the University of Denver.
While this was happening in theater nine, theater eight had a different experience. The two theaters are connected by one wall with theater nine on the right and theater eight on the left. During the gunfire, some of the bullets went through the wall conjoining the two theaters.
“I thought: Who the heck just interrupted my movie? Then I saw my tooth and my bloody hands and thought, ‘Oh crap. I have an orthodontist appointment and they already hate me for not wearing my retainer,’ and while those thoughts were in my mind, my face felt all swollen and I was like, ‘Oh crap, I don’t think I should move my mouth,'” said McKayla Hicks, who was in theater eight. “When I got up to leave, everyone else was just watching the movie and I was like ‘I’ve just been shot.'”
Shrapnel came through the wall and up across the two theaters to where Hicks was sitting, piercing through the skin of her right chin and travelling across to the left side of her mouth. Six small pieces were stuck across the front of her bottom gums and tiny pieces were throughout her mouth and nose. She lost one front bottom tooth while still sitting in her seat in the theater and another was pushed far back into her mouth. Neither tooth was recovered.
“When we walked outside the emergency exit, I saw a 20-something-year-old guy with his foot shot, dangling from his leg, and I remember my eyes feeling huge. I said ‘Oh my gosh’ without moving my face and mouth because I didn’t know how bad I was hurt,” Hicks said. “That was when I realized it was something big.”
For people in theater nine, getting out of the theater was a little more difficult.
Witt said she doesn’t entirely remember leaving the theater.
“At one point the people behind me started screaming really loud that he was coming up the stairs and that we had to run,” Witt said. “Somehow I managed to get out of the aisle and I ran up the stairs to the top exit and down the stairs and out the front door.”
Jansen Young, another person from theater nine, was watching the movie with her boyfriend Jonathan Blunk.
“I saw something getting thrown from the bottom right, it smoked and people screamed,” Young said. “Jon grabbed my hips and pushed me to the ground saying, ‘Jansen get down, stay down.’ He told me there was a man shooting and pushed me under the seats.”
With heavy breathing in her ear that she later recognized as Blunk’s, Young and Blunk remained in the theater until the shooting ended.
“I looked up and the shooter was gone. I started shaking Jon telling him it was time to go. He was unresponsive, so I tried lifting him to go out, but I couldn’t do it,” Young said. “My first thought was to go get help and come back. That’s when the fire alarm was pulled. I ran out of the movie theater.”
Young ran up some stairs next to her and climbed down onto the closed dumpsters to get down on the ground behind them. She hid under the compost bin, where she waited until she heard police radios.
“I just remember thinking, ‘This is what Jon would want me to do,'” Young said. “I honestly feel like he was with me telling me to keep hiding because I wasn’t safe yet.”
Jansen later heard Blunk’s name on the list of the deceased. He never made it out of the theater.
Throughout the last nine months, there have been many hearings with the suspected shooter.
On April 1, the prosecution announced in court they are seeking the death penalty. The prosecution talked to victims and their families about the penalty they wanted for this case.
“I want (him) to receive life in prison without the possibility of parole,” Witt said. “I want him to be forced to think about what he did for the rest of his life. Death is too easy, and while that might be harsh, life in prison seems much worse than the death penalty.”
Everyone affected by that night is still recovering, whether physically, mentally, emotionally or a combination of the three. The process is not yet over for some.
“So far I have had one surgery, I have braces again and implants to come. I’ll be having at least three more surgeries,” Hicks said. “It’s taken lots of flowers, tears, hugs, prayers and the love of family and real friends supporting me through the scariest, craziest life-threatening event I have experienced.”
If given the chance to talk to Jonathan one more time, Young’s message is this.
“I would ask him if he knows where heroes go. He’s my hero 100 percent,” Young said. “Hold your loved ones as tight as you can, because you never know when time is up.”
– lori_schafer@yahoo.com