Standing near the 7/20 Memorial at Aurora’s city hall, Mosaic Church of Aurora pastor Reid Hettich leads a prayer with attendees of a 12th-anniversary vigil honoring those killed during the 2012 Aurora theater shooting Saturday, July 20, 2024. (Max Levy / Sentinel Colorado)

AURORA | It’s been 12 years since a body-armor-clad gunman walked into Aurora’s Century 16 movie theater and opened fire on moviegoers, transforming a night of shared, joyful anticipation into an ordeal of grief, terror and death.

For survivors and for the families of those killed inside Theater 9, Friday night’s vigil near city hall was a chance to reconnect with others united by the fact that, for them, the night of July 19, 2012, will never fade completely into the past.

“We think about you all through the year, especially when other tragedies happen in other communities, I know it tears at your heart because you know what they’re going through,” said Heather Dearman, cousin of Ashley Moser, who was shot and survived but lost her two children.

A row of crosses — one for each victim of the 2012 Aurora theater shooting — is pictured in front of a vigil for the shooting victims held exactly 12 years after the attack. (Max Levy / Sentinel Colorado)

Dearman also leads the 7/20 Memorial Foundation, which organizes the annual vigil as well as the memorial 5-kilometer run that took place Saturday.

“I look forward to this every year so that I can have this moment to see you all hugging each other, and being vulnerable, and crying with each other, and being angry is OK, too,” Dearman told the dozens of vigil attendees.

Jonathan Blunk, AJ Boik, Jesse Childress, Gordon Cowden, Jessica Ghawi, John Larimer, Matthew McQuinn, Micayla Medek, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, Alex Sullivan, Alexander Teves, Rebecca Wingo and Moser-Sullivan’s unborn sibling, known posthumously as Baby Toews-Moser, all died in the attack.

Seventy others were wounded and many more were left with lasting psychological trauma.

 Laura Young, sister of 2012 Aurora theater shooting survivor Jansen Young, comforts police officer Ryan Burke during a vigil held at the City of Aurora’s Water-Wise Garden on the 12th anniversary of the attack shortly after midnight Saturday, July 20, 2024. (Max Levy / Sentinel Colorado)

Small memorials for each of the victims killed were set up in the city’s Water-Wise Garden. After a prayer by Mosaic Church of Aurora pastor Reid Hettich and comments from local officials, vigil attendees walked through the garden with tiny, electric candles, laying flowers next to the memorials marked by signs that included short biographies.

Aurora police and firefighters, including some of those who responded to the scene of the shooting, joined the vigil after police captain Sam McGhee read a list of victims’ names over an emergency radio channel and led first responders across the city in a moment of silence.

“We grieve with you, we celebrate life with you, we come out to these events with you, and we will never forget you,” deputy fire chief Allen Robnett told the group.

The midnight vigil was followed Saturday by the 5K memorial run as well as a display of chalk art and live music at the Aurora Municipal Complex.