CHURCHGOERS DABBED at their eyes as special prayers were offered in Aurora for those who died in the town of 325,000, which is not far from the scene of the 1999 Columbine High School student massacre.
“Our culture needs to change,” Fr Mauricio Bermudez told a packed mass at the Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Aurora.
“What kind of people are we becoming? Today, we must change. Today is the day,” he added.
“We’re still reeling,” Aurora mayor Steve Hogan said at a memorial late on Saturday for one young shooting victim.
President Barack Obama was expected in Aurora yesterday evening and a vigil in front of the city hall was organised.
A memorial of flowers, candles and stuffed animals has sprung up where the shootings took place. A handwritten sign read: “7/20 gone not forgotten.”
People are also conscious that some are still suffering after the tragedy. The Medical Center of Aurora said four of its seven patients remained in intensive care, while three others were on the main trauma floor.
“This immediately leads to the issue of gun control,” Arizona’s senator John McCain, said yesterday when asked about the shootings on CNN.
“To think that somehow increased gun control is the answer, that would have to be proved.”
Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado offered a similar response about whether he would support heavier restrictions on gun purchases.
“This is a case of evil, of someone who was an aberration of nature,” Hickenlooper said. “If it wasn’t one weapon, it would have been another.”
Others, including mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, have forcefully called for a renewed national discussion on gun control.
Bloomberg yesterday reiterated a call to Obama and Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, to make gun control an issue in the presidential campaign.
“Somebody’s got to do something about this, and it requires, particularly in a presidential year, the candidates for president of the United States to stand up once and for all say, ‘Yes they felt terrible, yes it’s a tragedy, yes we have great sympathies for the families, but it’s time for this country to do something,” Bloomberg said on CBS.
“It’s time for both of them to be called, held accountable.”
While Aurora is widely seen as safe, especially for its size, it has known its share of violence.
One of the most notorious crimes in Colorado unfolded here two decades ago, when a man killed four people at a local Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.
Three years ago, federal agents swarmed an Aurora apartment complex and arrested an Afghan shuttle bus driver, Najibullah Zazi, who eventually pleaded guilty to terrorism charges involving a plot to set off a bomb in New York City. In the neighbourhood where suspect James Holmes lived, a mostly Hispanic enclave of dusty lots and brick apartment buildings, residents say the area is not as safe as it once was.
Luis Pasillas moved from Chicago to a building a block from Holmes’ apartment a year ago. He said that in recent weeks a dead body turned up in the neighbourhood and there was a shooting nearby.
“Aurora used to be a nice place to live,” said Pasillas (34). “In the last month, it’s getting unsafe.”
The son of state representative Rhonda Fields, a Democrat who represents Aurora, was murdered here, along with his fiancée, in 2005, less than a week before he was to testify in a case involving the killing of a friend.
Fields said she was particularly upset that the gunman at the cinema had attacked the Aurora Town Center, a mall that has served as one of the city’s most popular gathering spots. The mall’s operators shut down the shopping centre Friday to allow law enforcement officials to conduct their investigation.
Meanwhile, The Dark Knight Rises recorded strong ticket sales in its opening weekend, but well below forecasts given by many in Hollywood, as some moviegoers appeared to have stayed away.
Warner Bros scaled back promotional plans, cancelling a Paris premiere and appearances by the cast and crew in Mexico and Japan.
* In Rome yesterday, Pope Benedict said: “I was deeply shocked by the senseless violence which took place in Aurora, Denver. I share the distress of the families and friends of the victims and the injured, especially the children.” – (New York Times service, Reuters)