CO: 14 YEAR ANNV OF THEATER SHOOTING MARKED
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AURORA, Colorado (KMGH) — Survivors and family members of the victims of the 2012 Century 16 theater shooting in Aurora gathered Saturday morning for the 11th annual Resilience Day Festival to honor those they lost and those who helped the community heal.
This week marks 14 years since a gunman opened fire in the Century 16 theater in Aurora. Twelve people were killed and 70 were injured.
In the following year, the 7/20 Memorial Foundation has invited the Aurora community to a festival designed to remember the victims of the shooting and honor the town’s resilience.
Many survivors and family members of victims spent their Saturday morning at the Aurora Water Wise Park, like Heather Dearman.
Dearman is the volunteer CEO of the 7/20 Memorial Foundation. She’s one of the festival’s annual organizers.
Fourteen years ago, she says her life was one of the hundreds forever changed.
“My cousin Ashley, she was in the theater that night,” Dearman said. “She was with her six-year-old daughter Veronica, and Ashley was also pregnant at the time. Unfortunately, she was shot. Ashley was shot, and she’s now paralyzed, and she lost her unborn child and our little six-year-old cousin Veronica.”
Still, Veronica’s memory lives on. Dearman calls her the family’s “little angel,” setting up a lemonade stand in her honor at the Resilience Day Festival each year.
“Veronica loved everyone she met,” Dearman said. “She was a friend to everyone, and lots of children are like that. They see the world with such beauty, and it’s a lesson of what we should be like if we honor Veronica. We’re going to be kind to everyone. We’re going to be friends with everyone.”
More than a decade later, through the festival and the lemonade stand, Veronica can keep making friends.
“We have this really fun little passport for kids who come to this event, where they can visit if they visit three chalk artists and three wellness booths, and then draw something that gives them hope,” Dearman said. “They can turn in the passport for a free cup of lemonade.”
Aurora’s Day of Resilience is a way to thank those who helped survivors and the community heal in the days, months and years following the shooting.
That holds true for those like Zack Golditch, who was shot and injured at the theater ahead of his senior year of high school. After two seasons in the NFL, Golditch returned to Aurora, joining the South Metro Fire Department. Every year, he leads the Hero’s Journey 5k run and walk at the festival.
“We’re here to celebrate the everyday heroes,” Golditch said. “The people who continuously show up day in and day out and ask for nothing in return, and then also the heroes that showed up that night to help people in need.”
Golditch is paying that forward by raising money for an annual scholarship that helps a first-generation Aurora Public School student athlete go to college.
“It’s just a really wholesome community event that warms my heart every single year it comes around, and it really reminds us you know what a helping hand can do for someone else,” he said.
The festival serves as a fundraiser for the 7/20 Memorial Foundation to keep supporting survivors of the tragedy and their stories of resilience year after year. If you missed the event, but want to support, you can donate to the mission on their website.
These are the lives lost that we continue to remember today:
AJ (Alexander) Boik. AJ had just graduated from Gateway High School, where he played baseball, said a family friend. Boik had planned on attending the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in the fall. His dream was to become an art teacher and open his own studio, his family said.
Jonathan Blunk. The father of two served three tours in the Persian Gulf and the North Arabian Sea between 2004 and 2009, a close friend, James Gill of Brighton, Colorado, told the Associated Press. He had high hopes for his future, with plans to re-enlist in the Navy and the goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. He died in the shooting after he pushed his girlfriend, Jansen Young, under the theater seat, saving her life.
Jesse Childress, 29, was a staff sergeant at Buckley Space Force Base and worked as a cyber-systems operator. Friends said he spent nearly every day of the week playing sports — softball on Mondays, bowling on Tuesdays, according to the Denver Post. Childress loved comics and superhero movies. He had recently bought a black Scion — a car he nicknamed the “Batmobile.”
Gordon Cowden. Gordon loved life and his family. He went to the midnight movie premiere with his two teenage children. The father of four, who lived in Aurora, was described as a “true Texas gentleman” in a family statement. He loved the outdoors and owned his own business. Cowden’s teenage children escaped the shooting unharmed.
Micayla Medek, 23, was saving money for a trip to India. She was working at Subway and attended Aurora Community College. Her father, Greg Medek, told the Los Angeles Times that Micayla loved Hello Kitty, hot pink, and Beanie Babies. At her funeral service, mourners wore pink ribbons, some with Hello Kitty faces on them, in honor of her fondness for the color and the character.
Matt McQuinn died trying to protect his girlfriend. As the gunman opened fire, McQuinn dove on top of Samantha Yowler. McQuinn’s stepfather, David Jackson, told the Dayton Daily News that McQuinn was a hero. Yowler was injured in the leg, a family spokesman said. McQuinn, a 27-year-old Ohio native, had moved to Colorado just a few months earlier.
Jessica Ghawi was a journalist and blogger who also went by the name Jessica Redfield. Ghawi had recently moved to Denver from San Antonio, Texas, to pursue her dream of becoming a sportscaster. “She had a huge heart,” Ghawi’s mother, Sandy Phillips, said. “Cared deeply for other people.” A few months earlier, Ghawi was visiting Toronto with her boyfriend, a minor league hockey player, when they narrowly escaped a deadly shooting in the city’s main downtown mall.
Veronica Moser Sullivan, 6, went to see the Batman movie with her mother, Ashley Moser, 25. Veronica died from her injuries. Ashley was left in critical condition, with gunshot wounds to her neck and abdomen. She was paralyzed below the waist. “(Veronica was) a vibrant little girl … just was bragging about learning how to swim on Tuesday,” Annie Dalton, Ashley’s aunt, said.
Alex Sullivan was at the midnight showing of the new Batman movie as part of his birthday celebration. “#TheDarkKnightRises OMG COUNTING down till it start can’t wait going to be the best birthday ever,” Sullivan wrote on Facebook. His family called him “their real-life superhero. Alex was smart, funny, and above all loved dearly by his friends and family,” the family statement said.
Alex Teves, 24, was originally from Arizona but had been living in the Denver area since graduating from the University of Denver. Teves’ father, Tom Teves, told ABC News that his son had blocked a bullet from hitting his girlfriend when he was himself shot and killed. His father said Alex would do anything to save his girlfriend.
Rebecca Ann Wingo, 32, was a devoted mother who always sat in the front row at church. Shannon Dominguez, who worked with Wingo on weekends, said she was friendly with everyone and always seemed to be in a good mood. “She had a really bubbly personality,” Dominguez said. “She was a pretty happy person. She just never really seemed … like with work, she never got irritated. She was pretty happy to be here.”
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