AURORA | Teddy bears, candles, flowers and photographs lined the sculpture outside Aurora’s City Hall while council members inside gathered at their first regularly scheduled council meeting following the July 20 shootings.
During their formal meeting, televised by Aurora’s Channel 8, council members thanked the city’s first responders for their service in the aftermath of the shooting, and made it a point that everyone should start healing.
“The fact that tonight we’re doing the city’s business is an indicator that the guy did not win,” Mayor Steve Hogan said, refusing to name the accused gunman.
The tragedy shouldn’t deter people from “enjoying their lives,” said Councilman Bob Broom.
Councilman Bob LeGare said he used to take his daughters to the Century Aurora 16 theater at least twice a month while they were growing up.
“I’d like to ask citizens across Colorado and the nation to not let the American past time of going to the movies with your kids, don’t let that become a victim of what has happened this past week,” LeGare said. Councilman Bob Roth said the tragedy should not, and will not, define Aurora.
“We will not allow one individual to dictate who we are as a people, and we will not allow one incident to dictate who we are as a community,” he said.
City lawmakers also thanked the hundreds of people from places ranging from England to the Philippines for sending condolences.
Hogan said he’s received correspondence from people on every continent.
In a letter to Roth, a man named Reagan Reynolds from Raleigh, N.C., said that shortly after the shootings, he went to his local theater to watch “The Dark Knight Rises.”
During the movie, he said he could only think of the victims of the massacre. He ended his letter with a message for the city’s residents.
“Aurora, this is a moment for heroes, and we are all looking at you — a beautiful city, brilliant people, a community that will rise from this abyss.”
Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com.