How did you hear? When did you hear?
I was attending a friend’s birthday party in Colorado Springs. A friend at the same hotel knocked on my door to tell me about the shooting shortly after it happened. Roxane White, my chief of staff, called me shortly thereafter.
Of course. While each tragedy is unique and awful in its own way, the theater shooting was wrenching in a way I’ve never experienced before. Watching the first police videotape of the crime scene early the morning after was surreal and deeply disturbing. The horror was as intense as anything I’ve ever experienced.
You didn’t use the shooter’s name in the days after. Why?
We almost seem to create cult heroes out of these twisted killers. It still seems better to deny them whatever evil satisfaction they derive from seeing or hearing their name ever spoken publicly. That way, perhaps, we also minimize the potential for a “copy-cat” attack by the next deranged individual.
Some of the decisions you’ve made in policy since the shooting have made you politically vulnerable. Do you regret that?
No. Greater mental health services was an obvious place where we could do a better job at trying to prevent someone with mental illness from going on a rampage. And background checks on gun purchases work. In 2012, we stopped more than 3,000 violent criminals from buying guns. More than 400 people trying to buy guns in 2012 had judicial restraining orders requiring them not to see someone they were emotionally at war with, and 236 people, when they came to pick up their new gun, were arrested for an outstanding warrant for a violent crime. Some may see these types of changes as the wrong thing to do politically — we saw them as the right thing to do.
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