by Peter Mertz
DENVER, United States, July 21 (Xinhua) -- It had been 10 years since a madman wielding three guns walked calmly in front of a packed movie theater audience and opened fire -- killing 12 and injuring 70 -- in what was then the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
But that was long ago, and much has changed. And much has changed for the worse.
Wednesday, on another hot, clammy night, at 38 minutes past midnight -- when it happened a decade before -- more than 100 victims, survivors and first responders met again near the site of the massacre, to remember the tragedy that had torn their lives apart and had ushered in a wave of mass shootings across the country that has never stopped.
PAIN AND ANGUISH
"Today was Alex's birthday," said Joyce Sullivan, 94, the grandmother of Alex Sullivan, who was shot to death at the midnight premiere of the Batman movie, the Dark Knight Rises, while celebrating his 27th birthday, with a group of friends from nearby Red Robin restaurant, where he worked as a bartender.
Joyce Sullivan's eyes watered as her grandson's name was announced Wednesday, standing with dozens in the darkness, before the crowd held candles and walked silently past a dozen white crosses and through a memorial garden for those killed in the Aurora theater massacre.
"Alex was a gentle giant, known and loved by so many. He always had a smile on his face, and his warmth was contagious and heartfelt. Once you met Alex, you were a friend for life," the grandmother told the Associated Press a decade ago.
On the day of Alex Sullivan's death, his father Tom also became a nationally-known figure, his distraught face screaming, "FIND MY SON!" as he held a picture of Alex, his face revealing the desperation parents felt that day who were unable to contact their children still inside the theater, who had to wait until that night to hear the devastating news they had already anticipated.
On Wednesday, the 7/20 Memorial Foundation's annual midnight candlelight walk took the somber, shuffling crowd to 12 large, flat, limestone markers, each representing one of those murdered a decade before. The speaker stopped at the last stone.
"Veronica Moser," the speaker's voice stopped suddenly, crackling with emotion, as she began describing the "vibrant, blue-eyed," six-year-old girl, who learned how to swim just five days before she was killed and who died from a "bullet to the belly" at the theater.
Atop Veronica's stone marker were 40 candles, blazing brightly, and the speaker's voice stopped and cracked again, as tears flowed from her eyes, and she slowly explained to the crowd surrounding her in the dark:
One candle is for Veronica, the little Colorado girl whose 25-year-old mother Ashley was paralyzed below the neck and suffered a miscarriage from the shooting; 20 candles are for the 20 children who were also killed in 2012, just five months after the Aurora theater massacre in Newtown, Connecticut; and 19 candles are for the children who died May 24 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas.
"It has gotten much worse," said Sandy Phillips, whose 24-year-old daughter Jessica Ghawi was shot to death in Aurora that night. Calling America's mass shootings "an epidemic," Phillips turned her life upside down after losing her only daughter, and now tours the country to give solace and advice to parents who have also lost children to gun violence.
"It's a never-ending task in today's gun violent America," she told Xinhua.
Mass shootings have become increasingly deadly, with fatalities in the five-year period ending 2021 up by roughly 30 percent from that during the 2012-2016 period, according to the Marshall Project.
CHANGED LIVES
Phillips and her husband Lonnie have become well-known spokespersons for gun control. They travel from mass shooting to mass shooting to offer solace to victims and survivors, and are frequently seen on national TV News programs. When 21 people were gunned down in Uvalde, Texas, the Phillips' were in Buffalo, New York, consoling families of the race-inspired shooting that killed 10 Blacks.
"They loaded into their truck and immediately started driving," The Colorado Sun reported this week.
After the Aurora massacre and 2015 trial, Tom Sullivan, who served in the U.S. Air Force from 1974-77, tossed his 30-year career as a U.S. Postal worker and jumped into politics, telling the media, "I had no other choice."
In 2018, Sullivan was elected as the first Democrat to represent Colorado's conservative House District 37, and the following year personally pushed the Extreme Risk Protection Order (Red Flag Bill) through the Colorado statehouse, that passed by a razor-thin 18-17 Senate vote.
That bill allows law enforcement to seize a potentially violent person's guns before they are used to kill. Sullivan has also been involved with legislation to ban large-capacity magazines and to expand background checks, and next year hopes to bring a bill to raise the age limit in Colorado for buying automatic rifles.
Both Sullivan and Phillips agree that recent gun control legislation doesn't go far enough.
"Not enough," Phillips told Xinhua. "Not nearly enough is being done to stop gun violence," she added, "These are baby steps ... and baby steps kill babies." ■
