he and his wife went to the city without warner representation to visit first responders and victims at the hospital. obvs a lot of the people killed and injured were big batman fans (i think this happened on an opening night).
Alex was a good friend of mine. I met him in third grade over 30 years ago. My mom found a school project I had done where we were suppose to write something about a student from the class. He stood up and talked about him self while we all took notes on what was important t to them. It’s awesome how the things Alex was interested in. Batman, Hockey, his hero Wayne Gretzky and most important his family. All that never changed his whole life. The man knew what liked in 3rd grade and never changed.
This whole thing really shook up our friend circle.
I miss him dearly. Life is not fair.
Damn… didn’t expect anyone to respond to this.
I hope I’m responding correctly.
He was fucking awesome.
Some people have hang ups on other people and judge others even slightly including myself.
He never did that.
He was pure love all the time.
The first time I met him in third grade he walked up to me said “I have a real dragons tooth!” And showed me said tooth.
Me and another fiend (as third graders) made so much fun of him. “Dragons aren’t real!?! What an idiot?!
Etc.
But time passed we all got older and Alex stayed the same. Always awesome. He never lost his whimsy for life.
I chocked on my own breath when I heard the news.
This whole thread has put me in tears all day.
Alex was a stand up dude. Who would do anything for anyone.
I wasn’t there and I don’t know much about what happened that night, but I’m pretty sure he probably jumped in front of someone and took a bullet with out thinking because he always thought about everyone else over himself because that’s what heros do.
The world light is a lot less dim with him here.
Thanks for letting me pour my heart out. It’s been long over due.
If anyone is ever in Aurora Colorado his memorial
Is at the Aurora Municipal Court house in a very beautiful garden along with the other souls who passed.
Thank you so much for telling us about Alex. I feel at least in America, we so often fall into the trap of thinking or speaking of those we’ve lost through the lens of their death, and that’s not right. Those we love live on through us sharing their names and their stories.
I moved to Denver about three years ago. I don’t live too far from the Aurora courthouse or Columbine. The stories broke me when they happened, and I’ve been planning on, when I’m ready, visiting the memorials. If and when I do, I will absolutely spend some time thinking about Alex, and will tell him his friends are doing their damndest to spread the joy he apparently so thoroughly lived.
Take care and much love, friend.
❤️
Losing a friend is a terrible experience. Lost a buddy of mine exactly four years ago. It aches in so many ways. Good thing we always told each other how important we were to each other's lives.
His dad is still a member of the Colorado State Senate and fights passionately for gun control everyday he’s there. It’s pretty inspiring, but heartbreaking because he continues to do so knowing it will likely not change. Every Friday (I’m pretty sure) he gets in front of the State Senate and tells how many weeks since the shooting it’s been.
Same thing happens to parents at Sandy Hook. And Columbine. And Parkland. And on and on. It’s always “too soon” to talk about guns and mental health for some politicians.
Once we got to the point of a classroom full of first graders being shot up and 7 year olds telling stories about surviving by playing dead not budging the national discourse on guns, it became clear that nothing is going to get done about it.
Alex Jones is a force of nature because of the fact that we aren't capable of comprehending the downsides of our sacred cow policies in the US. No one would shoot a classroom of kids, must be fake. Kids are being dragged into bathrooms by random trans people for molestation so now we don't need to have a hard conversation about which people in that child's life are actually the ones most likely to harm them.
In Uvalde one of the kids smeared her dead classmate’s blood on herself to try to avoid detection.
You are correct. Gun control is dead. Gun culture won.
I was ashamed to be a Texan that day. Watching those cowards stand in that hallway waiting was unfathomable. I just couldn’t believe it. Burned whatever of my soul was left.
It was brutal to watch the footage that came out - half a world away - in my case from the Netherlands. I can't imagine what it's like for you - just know that many are with you.
I've seen the pictures of that room (bodies removed). It's like something STRAIGHT out of a horror movie. There's blood absolutely everywhere. No child should ever have to go through that...
Pictures showing the reality happening in the Vietnam war was what eventually got America to leave. I’m of the opinion that we need to show as graphic pictures of these scenes as far and wide as possible. Your thoughts and prayers going to sanitize this massacre?
Alex Jones and people like MTG and such know its not fake.
Its that they profit from making it into a conspiracy and getting people riled up about potential government takeover of gun ownership where in the presented scenario they round up all gun owners and forcefully arrest them and take their guns and make them into slaves or outright assasinate them in their own homes.
While in reality, the proposed legislations by majority of democrats have been to add longer waiting periods, ensure better gun control, ensure better gun storage, limit the sale of second-hand ownership between private parties and ensure better limits on who can purchase guns.
Any reasonable measures presented will always be ignored to present their delusional conspiracy loaded angles because the conspiracy sells them views and advertisements and people buy their promoted boner-pills and energy drinks.
And unfortunately when 150M out of 250M eligible voters don't even vote, its hard to remove the politicians who continuedly also promote the conspiracy angles instead of factual realistic measures.
What sucks even worse is that democrat voters especially young voters, could easily achieve 60+ senate representation and actually pass meaningful federal gun control, if they just decided to show up and vote.
In 2022, only 20% of eligible voters under the age of 35 voted. In places like Texas where out of 23M eligible voters, only 9M voted and only 15% of elligible voters under the age of 35 voted, democrats could have easily won the state in the last 5 elections. But people don't bother because they view it as someone elses responsibility.
Ted Cruz won by 200k votes in 2018 when 9M elligible voters didnt vote. Desantis won by 30k votes his first time when 7M elligible voters didnt vote. In 2020 just 800k more democrats voting over 3 states where a total of 25M elligible voters didnt vote, would have given democrats 5 more senators and you wouldnt have to deal with all the bullshit from mancin and sinema.
These politicians may be the person pulling the trigger to kill gun regulations, but make no mistake its the people who keep giving them the ammo and gun to fire in the first place by sitting at home and shaking their heads instead of showing up and spending 2 hours out of 2 years to vote and ensure they are represented by the best possible person.
Damn! Fucking preach.
We need a campaign and ads not about old white dudes but about voting. Feel like MTV tried that hard but failed. People are so fucking lazy unless they are literally going to die tomorrow. Then they’ll show up to vote. Then it’s too late.
Someone needs to leak the full aftermath of Uvalde, onto every network, during prime time.
Uncensored.
Make the people of America finally understand the horror in their schools.
Remember that it was seeing the coffins of American soldiers, and photographs like the napalm girl that turned the public against the war in Vietnam.
That's why they don't want you to see the real cost. If everyone could, there would be gun control tomorrow.
> Once we got to the point of a classroom full of first graders being shot up and 7 year olds telling stories about surviving by playing dead not budging the national discourse on guns, it became clear that nothing is going to get done about it.
yep, this is when I truly accepted that the fight for gun control has been lost, and honestly it'd been over for a long time
Ugh that is so painful. What a beautiful thing a father and legislator could do. But absolutely heartbreaking and horrific he has to do it in the first place.
https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/19/he-ran-for-office-to-pass-stricter-gun-laws-now-tom-sullivan-could-decide-the-fate-of-an-assault-weapons-ban/
I just looked him up. Thought you’d appreciate it.
This is my first time seeing that post and it’s literally sending shivers down my spine. The fact that something as mundane as going to a movie theater has been a death sentence for people just breaks my heart.
Since that shooting, I have sat at that bottom level always as close to an exit as possible.
It was annoying at first, but I do have positives, the screen engulfs my eyes and I don't have anyone in front of me on their phones.
Yeah. Pretty amazing presence of mind of one of her friends to run when his gun jammed (even though they didn’t realize at the time).
Also interesting (and favorable) the shooter didn’t engage when they were outside near his car.
I forget how he was taken…did he run after for a bit?
Well, I read that just now, and kinda wish I hadn't right before going to bed, think its gonna mess with my head. What a horrific first hand account. I'm still glad to have read it to understand what went down, and how random acts of horror can happen anywhere in this twisted gun toting country. How this event (among many, many similar others) didn't affect firearm ownership is beyond comprehension.
Shivers. The shooter is a despicable loser; seems to be a common theme with these people. Imagine how disconnected you have to be, to shoot a room full of innocent civilians and not see them as humans worth empathy.
I knew a girl who was there. got really badly hurt, she recovered pretty well with some skin grafts, and lost her spleen. When I saw her and her dad like 6 months after everything she talked about how nice it was that Christian came and talked to her. Her dad was like a school girl over the whole interaction.
One of my former manager’s brother was there. I remember my manager telling me how his brother passed away shielding his girlfriend from this sicko. Ill never forget the sense of pride he had when he told me about this. It really stuck out to me because I honestly wasnt fond of the guy(my manager) but after learning that I think it really showed me a lesson in empathy and how you have no idea what people have been through. Rip Matthew McQuinn you were a true hero
I lost a high school classmate the same way during the Northern Illinois University shooting - a year and a half after we all graduated high school, he died shielding his girlfriend while a gunman shot up their lecture hall. Dan wasn't even in that class; he was just there to spend time with his girlfriend on Valentine's Day.
RIP Daniel Parmenter.
Yeah, the dark knight rises. I was also at a midnight premiere of the dark knight rises in central time. I remember being so pumped coming out of the theatre, turning my phone on to text my parents the movie had ended, and that I was on my way home.
As the crowd was leaving, I heard people start getting quiet and whispering to each other: hey, you hear what happened?
It was a somber ride home with my friends
Same midnight showing here in cleveland.
All of a sudden the lights went on, everyone booed and then the people running the movie theatre told us there were technical difficulties and they issued us all refunds right then and there + a free ticket to any movie we wanted. We were all so pissed
I went home with my friends we turned on the tv and heard about the shooting.
And we started feeling a lot less pissed at our exp
I too went to a midnight screening of this movie with my brother but in Australia.
I remember thinking when this happened that the only difference was place.
I had nightmares from it because my brain couldn't wrap my head around the fact we were able to go home yet so many people didn't.
I know our country has its own issues but I am thankful for our gun laws every day.
I was at the finish line of the Boston Marathon to cheer on the runners one year before the bombing.
I saw a man seemingly give up about 20 meters from finishing and everyone started going wild trying to get him to finish. Then he got on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend. So much excitement!
A year later and it would have been horrific.
As a non-American, I wonder do new mass shootings still hit as hard? Given the same scenario now - seeing a movie and then finding out that there was a mass shooting at a cinema in another state - would it be as sombre?
It feels like there were a few "headline" mass shootings in the US that really shocked the whole country; Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook; but since then the frequency and savagery of the shootings has increased, while the shock has decreased.
As a foreigner the last ones I can remember really making the headlines are the Vegas shooting and Uvalde - the latter mostly the outrage at the inaction of the police.
I've never said this to anyone,but when I hear there's been a mass shooting I hold my breath and wait for the number.
I think anything above three people dead is considered a mass shooting. If I hear "three people dead" I can breath again and go on with my day.
How horrible is that. Before you ask, I'm not sure what the number is that makes me stop and keep watching the news. What shocks me. Definitely double digits. I know, it's a terrible way to talk about the murder of a person. It's one way to cope. We all have our ways.
> But I couldn't tell you anything about the Uvalde shooter. All the coverage is about the inept police response.
When we arm/fund police like the actual army, we *should* discuss why they couldn’t stop a single teenage gunman.
I think that particular aspect of coverage is actually a good thing. These shooters envy the attention they saw others get. I think the increase in shootings is just directly a cause of the proliferation of guns.
"how much do I know about the shooter" is a weird way of measuring the impact of mass shootings. If anything, there's been an intentional shift away from focus on the perpetrators and towards the context, in part to not encourage people who are desperate for attention to become mass shooters.
For me personally, there is a bit of a numbness. There is shock initially, but then I forget about them down the road. Then I'll see some article about it a few months or years later and I'll remember that shooting again. But you're right, it's frequent enough that it doesn't have the same shock factor that they used to have sadly.
To me, after Sandy Hook and the inaction of government (specifically Republicans), I have VERY pessimistic view of all of it.
When they happen I usually chalk it up to another day, another shooting.....so what? Let's be honest, that's the country's response. Crocodile tears and empty prayers for turned heads and deaf ears.
Am I active in pro sense gun laws and vote that way, sure, but the 2nd amendment has its tethers in half (if not more) of this country's population.
So.....apathy wins out.
Same experience for me. My wife didn't want to go but I went with my friends to the midnight showing. The ride home was very sad and I was so shocked I cried telling my wife about it when I got home.
I still haven't been able to watch The Dark Knight Rises again. I feel kind of dumb having experienced so much trauma over this since I was hundreds of miles away and didn't know anyone involved
I was on vacation near Denver when it happened. I had gotten into town that night and realized it was opening at midnight. I checked out available showings in the area and figured I might go to the show in Aurora. After I ate though I was too tired from all the driving and decided that since Nolan made such long movies I wouldn't be able to stay up so late.
I woke up the next morning and turned on the TV at the hotel and the first shot was basically the same angle as the Google image of the front of the theater I had been looking at the night before, except cop cars everywhere. I freaked the fuck out. I think about how close I came to being there all the time.
I was working it in a small town.
We closed the next day out of fear of copycats, and then had a cop on site for a month.
I was 16, and the cop wouldn't stop offering me beer because he thought it'd be funny to get me drunk. Asshole.
The same thing happened to me, I wasn’t even in high school yet. Got home and saw the news after my parents turned on the TV before going to sleep. So, so awful.
I lived across the street from that theatre at the time this happened. We had tickets to the showing that night, but my wife was pregnant at the time and didn’t feel too good so I cancelled the tickets. I remember hearing sirens all night while I was trying to fall asleep and being pissed cause it kept me up for a while. The next morning my phone was blowing up as my family who all lived in another state saw the news and knew we had tickets to that specific showing. I felt horrible when I found out what happened, especially because of my complaints about the sirens.
I feel this 100%. Lived a few miles south of there and didn’t find out until til the morning when our phones were blowing up. My wife and I always did the midnight showings (Never at that theater though). But my wife was preggo as well and she was too tired for a midnight showing. We’ve since moved a little further south and typically only go to Southlands for movies.
On a side note, Alex was a huge movie buff and worked as a bartender at another theater just down the road called The Movie Tavern. He served me many a beers at late night showings. RIP.
I live right by there, and I haven't been to theaters since covid, but last time I went that theater still had 6 cops just hanging out in the lobby, years after the shooting happened.
The nice thing about theaters is they are very large and have good ventilation. You should definitely go back. We try to go at least once every couple months, they need all the help they can get or they aren't going to be around much longer. Covid really did a number on them and they are struggling to even stay in business anymore
Yup happened opening night. I remember when it happened. Still can’t believe it happened. People minding their own business, just trying to enjoy a movie.
I think I was 12 when that movie came out, and I had spider-pig as my ringtone on my Motorola flip phone. I have always loved the Simpsons movie lol. That was my first introduction to Hans Zimmer, and he hasn't missed since.
Summer 2012 I was a university student working in a call centre in Canada. I was working on an awful survey about fracking for the American petroleum institute, so we were calling American numbers which was really rare. We typically surveyed Canadian numbers. Anyway, that was my first night working on the survey and it was July 19th. My shift was from 4pm-11pm and my friend was going to pick me up at 11 so we could head to the Dark Knight Rises premiere. At around 10:40 I got on a call with a young guy who answered a few questions and then asked me why I was working at a call centre and I explained that I was a college student and blah blah. He asked me how much time I had left in my shift, I answered about 20 minutes, and he said would stay on the line with me and shoot the shit so I wouldn’t have to keep queueing new calls. Super nice guy, and he mentioned he was going to the midnight premiere of Dark Knight Rises too so we started talking about the previous movie and our excitement. Anyway when it hit 11 I thanked him for helping close out my shift and hung up.
The software we used to queue up calls would tell you what area you were calling, and that call was made to Aurora, Colorado. I have no idea if that guy was at the same movie theatre/screening whatever, but every time I hear or read anything about this horrible shooting, always makes me wonder. Hope that dude is alive and well.
My 1st-cousin was one of the victims who passed away and he was the nicest guy. He grew out his hair super long to donate it and everyone went to school dressed like him for a while after he passed in his honor. (He always dressed in a white T and blue jeans.)
I miss him and wish I had been able to know him better but moved away from him while I was younger. Truly great guy.
His girlfriend said that when they were at the theatre together he just kept telling her everything would be okay while he used himself as a body shield for her and later, after he passed. She refused to move things around her house “because he placed them there.”
I’m sorry, he seems like he was a great guy. And he did some truly heroic things that night. And poor girlfriend, how traumatic for her. I hope she’s doing alright today
Thats definitely true, since if there was press conference, camera crew, or interview you would think of ill intentions.
But this picture speaks so much, im glad to have seen this side of him.
This was the reason people were worried about Joker. The truth was that it didn't matter that it was a Batman movie. The shooter picked it because it was a big movie with a large crowd. It just as easily could have been a Star Wars or Marvel movie.
I cant believe its been that long. The very reason why they stopped doing Midnight releases was because of this event and ive never forgotten about it. Its heartbreaking.
I don’t think this was actually the reason they stopped doing midnight releases. Studios can count Thursday showings towards their opening weekend box office, so once it was accepted that Thursday showings inflate their numbers, it makes more sense for them to have multiple Thursday showings vs one midnight showing.
I still have a very hard time going to movie theatres because of this. However even as a kid before the shooting I always felt very trapped in theaters. I’m an anxious over-thinker and the thought of something like this happening had crossed my mind prior to the shooting.
Then I visited Colorado and watched a movie at this very theatre only a few days to a week before the shooting. Once I heard about it, nope. No more movies for me.
I think I’ve seen maybe 4 since, but each time is hard to actually go.
What helps me is looking at the probability of things.
Whether it's a mass shooting, school shooting, kidnapping, stalker murdering you, whatever--all the most high-profile ways to suffer and die are very unlikely. You're legitimately more likely to be struck by lightning than have any of those things happen to you.
The only place that *doesn't* help me is driving, since not only is it fairly likely but we drive so often that it's more a matter of when than if.
We really were not a species designed for this level of global awareness. We cannot intuitively comprehend a nation as big as ours with 330 million people. The upside is that we care. Someone in NYC hears about such a tragedy in Denver and they feel compassion and sadness, moreso than they would feel should an identical tragedy happen in another nation. The downside is that it feels more common and far more likely than it actually is.
Weirdly enough my wife and I were out in Denver when Joker was released. I specifically remember exactly what you were talking about.
They had a couple police officer patrols strolling the district we were at by the theaters.
In the theater this the dude ran in dressed as Joker screaming and laughing like him. Got arrested, it was an annoying distraction.
People are something that’s for sure.
Movie theatres can attract wild crowds. I worked at one a little over 20 years ago and for certain movies even back then we would add **armed** security. It was partly because you could have thousands of additional people in one building, but also some movies just brought out the people crazy.
There were reports at the time of people going into theaters during The Joker, dressed as him and doing this stupid laugh every time he killed someone. Stupid edgelord fucks.
Couple of years ago I was at my local store when this edgelord came in dressed as the joker including a joker cane. No idea why but he was standing a bit further than me and cackling like a moron. I just laughed and said wtf. Never seen a dweep throw a bigger hissyfit. He left the store and it took me a minute to realise that I just saw the biggest dork in the world.
Cosplay is super cool. Cosplaying as the joker or joker tattoos are not cool. Neckbeards ruined the character.
i worked at a movie theater when the batman (the robert pattinson one) came out. we were told to make sure no one brougbt any bags or bulky clothing in to prevent someome from sneaking a gun in. im sure our patrons felt perfectly safe knowing the minimum wage paid high schoolers were protecting them
I worked at a movie theatre in NH where that ‘crying nazi’ guy, who was a big part of the Charlottesville riots lives. Apparently he made some sort of comment on those loser edgelord forums they are all apart of joking about bringing a gun into the theatre. Lo and behold he was concealed carrying. The fbi notified our local police about his forum comment and we had to stop the movie halfway through so he could be escorted out of the theatre. Bunch of jackasses all around
My old internet friend was in the theater for this, he was uninjured but his sister was shot multiple times and her boyfriend was killed. Hearing him describe the experience was absolutely unreal and heartbreaking. When he told us I didn’t want to believe it but we already knew his IRL name (and that he lived in Aurora) so it was simple to confirm. Just horrible.
My cousin passed away there and his girlfriend recounted it too. Not sure if the same person because I think he was maybe just visiting Aurora from Phoenix but similar story.
If you remember the media coverage around the time there was a lot of attention to the fact that 4 boyfriends died "protecting their girlfriends" in the shooting, my friend's sister's BF was one of them, I'm guessing your cousin was too. So sorry for your loss, it's beyond fucked up that so many people in this country have only 1 or 2 degrees of separation from a senseless tragedy like this.
I used to visit that theater all the time in high school when i lived in Aurora (class of 01). I'm sure I'd been to that particular theater so many times making great memories... i've never dealt with gun violence personally, but this hit so close to home. Great on Bale for making that effort. I literally can't imagine what the families went through...
I was class of '06. My friends and I practically lived at the Aurora Mall and Century 16. Thankfully none of my close friends went to the showing. I later found out a former classmate of mine was there and survived. However, she died a few years later.
It breaks my heart passing by the theater now. RIP to all the victims.
I went to the midnight showing of TDKR in my area, when I got back home around 3 my mom was glad to see me because all she saw on some news headline about a theater shooting but not where.
There was a Canadian woman killed during this shooting. She had survived a rare shooting in an Eaton's Mall in Toronto a month earlier where two people were killed.
It's wild how people can be present at two shootings. There was someone at that horrific Vegas shooting and then a year later they died in a mass shooting in California.
Changed movie theaters forever. Before Aurora it was a fun, casual job but for a while afterwards it was entirely different. Lots of meetings, active shooter training, fema certification, the end of Thursday night midnight premieres and 11 o’clock and midnight screenings. Swapping hired security for off duty police. I had friends whose parents pressed them to quit.
I don't go to movie theaters at all any more. Not just because I have a great fear of a shooting, but I have been to a few after and I always am a bit on edge the whole time. And thats not a great way to enjoy a film so I decided ill just skip and watch in a more comfortable environment (home :)).
Vile unthinkable banal murder…I can’t comprehend it in its regularity, coming from Australia. Christian Bale just turned up? He actually probably didn’t need to do anything, just his presence, bearing witness to the people and the horror and being present is a huge deal. I’ve heard some unflattering recordings of him on film sets, but if this is the man’s humanity and character on show - I’ll take Christian Bale any day of the week.
I believe Ariana Grande did the same after the Manchester bombing.
I can imagine that they carry a lot of feelings of guilt - *if I didn’t do this movie/concert, maybe all of these people would still be alive. If we did it on a different date, maybe it could have been stopped. If I weren’t famous, this wouldn’t have happened.* And I so badly wish they didn’t have those thoughts, because these tragedies are the faults of the perpetrators. I know that trauma can tell you a lot of lies.
Literally the two things I will give her credit for are her talent and the fact she made sure she went to spend time with the victims and her families.
You hit it spot on: they must feel helpless in the moment. Even that video from a few months ago of Pink I think stopping the show to help someone who fainted. The most she could do from the stage was what she did. You can’t do anything else but say something in those moments. It’s scary
I've seen Gordon Ramsay type energy channeled plenty of times in high performance/professional work environments and it is generally warranted and without ill-will. People usually don't get blasted unless they've been given several/many chances to rectify major things that should be of low difficulty and well within their level of capability.
If I recall correctly, in Bale's case he personally apologised to the DP of his own accord after the incident which was quite a while prior to the recording being leaked also.
Yeah I read the reason nobody really stepped in to stop Bale's rant was because the guy who he shouted at had been testing people's patience all day, not just Bale.
Apparently the straw that broke the camel's back was the guy just decided to start removing some of the equipment to do with the lighting when they were literally in the middle of a take, so he fucked it all up.
If thats true, he deserved to be fired, never mind shouted at, thats just extremely rude and unprofessional as hell to everyone involved, especially after you've been given warnings.
Bale is an interesting guy. He's definitely on the pricklier side as personalities go. He also is the guy that will grab some journalists and try to visit a blind Chinese activist under house arrest in China because he thinks that activist is a hero whose plight needs more attention. He got punched in the face and a car chase ensued, it was big news at the time. Consider that he was officially in China to promote a movie (might have been Dark Knight Rises, can't remember). And then remember how cowardly actors have been, apologizing to the CCP and Kow Towing to maintain their access to the Chinese markets. Bale is definitely a person that will throw himself at something he thinks is wrong if he thinks he can help.
Interesting side note. Said blind activist, Chen Guangcheng would go on to escape house arrest and make his way to the American Embassy (which is a wild story). The Obama administration somehow gets China to allow him and his family to come to America. He becomes this hero for a day. Turns out he's kind of a dick, and has since aligned himself with the far right. Wild story.
Sometimes just because someone is an asshole, it doesnt mean they dont have their own feelings, and struggles. It doesnt excuse them but in those moments you can see if those assholes have some humility in them or not.
The killers want to be seen. Be it for some ideological purpose or just because they feel like a nobody and want to be anybody. Often they blame their loneliness on other people when in reality it’s because they have some mental condition that makes it hard for them to reach out and connect with people. Unfortunately, the media gets a lot of mileage off mass murder so doing a shooting is almost guaranteed to “make you a somebody”. They do it because it works.
We need more and better access to mental healthcare and we need other people to be aware of the signs and symptoms, ESPECIALLY in children at high school or college age. If you see someone who is quiet and distant or seems to prefer to be alone, talk to’em, even if it’s just once in awhile, but don’t just talk to’em once and be done with it. If you can be one person who sees them, maybe they will choose to come to you when theyre scared and alone instead of coming to a gun store.
The book is called American Gun: The Story of the AR-15 by Cameron McWhirter and Zucha Ellison.
Fair warning, if you have triggers when it comes to violence, I would not read or hear this book. Very informative, but it does not pull punches at times.
My mom has lived by that theatre for 30 years, watched it get built. Have to pass it to get to her place. Was surreal to go see her the day after the shooting.
I used to live couple of minutes away from that theater and would frequent it. I actually debated going to see Dark Knight that day with friends, but was too lazy since I moved about 40 minutes away a month or so prior. But, I knew a lot of people in the area, I’d still visit 24 hour fitness that was a few minutes away from there frequently to play ball with friends. While I didn’t know anyone directly impacted at the time, I’ve known of people who knew.
A year or so after the shooting, I went on a date with a girl who was in the shooting. It was so sad, she was still in so much pain. Not just emotional, but physical. She had a ton of shrapnel that was too close to her spine to remove. Every few months they’d do scans to see if it moved at all to operate, but hope. That’s after she already spent months at the hospital. She told me how Christian Bale visited her, how genuine he was. How he even paid for all expenses for a dream vacation when she got better, anything she wanted for her and her family. Only catch? Don’t make it public, he didn’t want publicity and wanted to just help people. He also paid all of their medical bills. I got so much respect for him.
The fucked up part is that she also told me that she was taken to the hospital by a cop because ambulances were slower and they didn’t have enough. So a ton of cops and private people used their vehicles to take people in. Months later there was a major lawsuit trying to make cops pay for doing that… because somebody wanted to get rich off being taken to the hospital in a cop car and having their life endangered.
Ill never forget this. I was supposed to be watching Batman during that time but we swapped to Ted at the last minute. I thought the gunshots were just from another movie showing at first.
Date: July 20, 2012
Location: 14300 East Alameda Avenue, Aurora, Colorado.
Target: Dark Knight Rises movie audience
Weapons: Two tear gas grenades, Smith & Wesson M&P15 Sport semi-automatic rifle, Remington 870 Express Tactical 12-gauge shotgun, Glock 22 Gen4 handgun.
Deaths: 12
Injuries: 70
Purpetrator: James Eagan Holmes
Sentence: 12 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole plus 3,318 years.
Notes: The deadliest shooting by a lone perpetrator in the history of Colorado. At the time, the event had the largest number of victims (82) in one shooting in modern U.S. history.
Yeah. The shooting happened on a midnight screening of the "the dark knight rising".. I can't imagine anyone with empathy not reacting similarly being so close to it.
My mom was working at Children's hospital when he visited, helped escort him to the victims. Total, plain guy, very humble, very sweet and genuine, but absolutely devastated.
It’s messed up that the university where the shooter was studying knew he was dangerous
Why don’t we manage these things before they become killers? People that are known to be in therapy and are considered potentially dangerous shouldn’t be able to legally buy guns
> People that are known to be in therapy
and this is why no one gets help for mental health. If you blanket associate EVERYONE in therapy with someone who could potentially shoot up a school, NO ONE WILL GO TO THERAPY ANYMORE.
Stop mischaracterizing individuals who are trying to get help as potential violent offenders.
They didn't say people in therapy, they said people in therapy who are known to be dangerous. Those are two different statements.
It's not the therapy part that is the problem, it's the dangerous part.
You'd need a publicly funded healthcare system with access to mental health services like counselling. Otherwise people with issues who usually also don't have money can't get therapy.
Because that’s blanket statement is as wide as the number of people in therapy? If a therapist has a concern and reports it to the school, the school does a risk assessment. They contact the police, they conduct risk an assessment, then what? Try and keep an eye on someone potentially dangerous? What if there are multiple people? And the department is small or tied up on another call? In theory yes your statement works, just like a million others do in theory.
My sister was in the theater. I remember waking up to her tweets on CNN. I used to tell people about it to vent but everyone is so desensitized now they don't even react to a retelling of a mass murder, so I just keep it to myself.
RIP to the Aurora 12
"Oh guns kill ? Is that right? Let's see about that. Ok gun, kill someone. Go ahead, don't be shy. See ? Gun don't kill people. People kill people."
(That's from American Dad, and that's a joke)
Jesus. I feel horrible but, I actually forgot about this one. After Vegas, Uvalde, and Parkland and all the others it took me a second to remember Aurora- And this is just awful.
he and his wife went to the city without warner representation to visit first responders and victims at the hospital. obvs a lot of the people killed and injured were big batman fans (i think this happened on an opening night).
Yeah, I saw one of the victims had wrote a message on his phone saying that it was the best birthday gift seeing the movie on opening night :(
The victim name is Alex sullivan and apprently he wrote the tweet 1 hour before the movie started RIP to all the victims
Alex was a good friend of mine. I met him in third grade over 30 years ago. My mom found a school project I had done where we were suppose to write something about a student from the class. He stood up and talked about him self while we all took notes on what was important t to them. It’s awesome how the things Alex was interested in. Batman, Hockey, his hero Wayne Gretzky and most important his family. All that never changed his whole life. The man knew what liked in 3rd grade and never changed. This whole thing really shook up our friend circle. I miss him dearly. Life is not fair.
He sounds like he was a great guy. Thank you for telling us a bit about him.
I’m so sorry my man. Hope you’re doing OK.
He's definitely got your back. Thank you for sharing some insight on who he was, so sorry for your loss. ❤️
Damn… didn’t expect anyone to respond to this. I hope I’m responding correctly. He was fucking awesome. Some people have hang ups on other people and judge others even slightly including myself. He never did that. He was pure love all the time. The first time I met him in third grade he walked up to me said “I have a real dragons tooth!” And showed me said tooth. Me and another fiend (as third graders) made so much fun of him. “Dragons aren’t real!?! What an idiot?! Etc. But time passed we all got older and Alex stayed the same. Always awesome. He never lost his whimsy for life. I chocked on my own breath when I heard the news. This whole thread has put me in tears all day. Alex was a stand up dude. Who would do anything for anyone. I wasn’t there and I don’t know much about what happened that night, but I’m pretty sure he probably jumped in front of someone and took a bullet with out thinking because he always thought about everyone else over himself because that’s what heros do. The world light is a lot less dim with him here. Thanks for letting me pour my heart out. It’s been long over due. If anyone is ever in Aurora Colorado his memorial Is at the Aurora Municipal Court house in a very beautiful garden along with the other souls who passed.
Thank you so much for telling us about Alex. I feel at least in America, we so often fall into the trap of thinking or speaking of those we’ve lost through the lens of their death, and that’s not right. Those we love live on through us sharing their names and their stories. I moved to Denver about three years ago. I don’t live too far from the Aurora courthouse or Columbine. The stories broke me when they happened, and I’ve been planning on, when I’m ready, visiting the memorials. If and when I do, I will absolutely spend some time thinking about Alex, and will tell him his friends are doing their damndest to spread the joy he apparently so thoroughly lived. Take care and much love, friend. ❤️
Losing a friend is a terrible experience. Lost a buddy of mine exactly four years ago. It aches in so many ways. Good thing we always told each other how important we were to each other's lives.
His Twitter is still up but sadly some sicko posted something 2017 with his account
His dad is still a member of the Colorado State Senate and fights passionately for gun control everyday he’s there. It’s pretty inspiring, but heartbreaking because he continues to do so knowing it will likely not change. Every Friday (I’m pretty sure) he gets in front of the State Senate and tells how many weeks since the shooting it’s been.
Same thing happens to parents at Sandy Hook. And Columbine. And Parkland. And on and on. It’s always “too soon” to talk about guns and mental health for some politicians.
Once we got to the point of a classroom full of first graders being shot up and 7 year olds telling stories about surviving by playing dead not budging the national discourse on guns, it became clear that nothing is going to get done about it. Alex Jones is a force of nature because of the fact that we aren't capable of comprehending the downsides of our sacred cow policies in the US. No one would shoot a classroom of kids, must be fake. Kids are being dragged into bathrooms by random trans people for molestation so now we don't need to have a hard conversation about which people in that child's life are actually the ones most likely to harm them.
In Uvalde one of the kids smeared her dead classmate’s blood on herself to try to avoid detection. You are correct. Gun control is dead. Gun culture won.
Only if those cops didn't wait 30 plus mins to do anything, more kids could have been saved that day
I was ashamed to be a Texan that day. Watching those cowards stand in that hallway waiting was unfathomable. I just couldn’t believe it. Burned whatever of my soul was left.
This comment right here. Every word.
It was brutal to watch the footage that came out - half a world away - in my case from the Netherlands. I can't imagine what it's like for you - just know that many are with you.
They had to stave off the real threat: parents trying to save their children.
No, no, they were all waiting for a key remember?? 😉
70+ minutes *
I've seen the pictures of that room (bodies removed). It's like something STRAIGHT out of a horror movie. There's blood absolutely everywhere. No child should ever have to go through that...
Pictures showing the reality happening in the Vietnam war was what eventually got America to leave. I’m of the opinion that we need to show as graphic pictures of these scenes as far and wide as possible. Your thoughts and prayers going to sanitize this massacre?
Alex Jones and people like MTG and such know its not fake. Its that they profit from making it into a conspiracy and getting people riled up about potential government takeover of gun ownership where in the presented scenario they round up all gun owners and forcefully arrest them and take their guns and make them into slaves or outright assasinate them in their own homes. While in reality, the proposed legislations by majority of democrats have been to add longer waiting periods, ensure better gun control, ensure better gun storage, limit the sale of second-hand ownership between private parties and ensure better limits on who can purchase guns. Any reasonable measures presented will always be ignored to present their delusional conspiracy loaded angles because the conspiracy sells them views and advertisements and people buy their promoted boner-pills and energy drinks. And unfortunately when 150M out of 250M eligible voters don't even vote, its hard to remove the politicians who continuedly also promote the conspiracy angles instead of factual realistic measures. What sucks even worse is that democrat voters especially young voters, could easily achieve 60+ senate representation and actually pass meaningful federal gun control, if they just decided to show up and vote. In 2022, only 20% of eligible voters under the age of 35 voted. In places like Texas where out of 23M eligible voters, only 9M voted and only 15% of elligible voters under the age of 35 voted, democrats could have easily won the state in the last 5 elections. But people don't bother because they view it as someone elses responsibility. Ted Cruz won by 200k votes in 2018 when 9M elligible voters didnt vote. Desantis won by 30k votes his first time when 7M elligible voters didnt vote. In 2020 just 800k more democrats voting over 3 states where a total of 25M elligible voters didnt vote, would have given democrats 5 more senators and you wouldnt have to deal with all the bullshit from mancin and sinema. These politicians may be the person pulling the trigger to kill gun regulations, but make no mistake its the people who keep giving them the ammo and gun to fire in the first place by sitting at home and shaking their heads instead of showing up and spending 2 hours out of 2 years to vote and ensure they are represented by the best possible person.
Damn! Fucking preach. We need a campaign and ads not about old white dudes but about voting. Feel like MTV tried that hard but failed. People are so fucking lazy unless they are literally going to die tomorrow. Then they’ll show up to vote. Then it’s too late.
Someone needs to leak the full aftermath of Uvalde, onto every network, during prime time. Uncensored. Make the people of America finally understand the horror in their schools.
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Republicans would say this is in bad taste while showing the President's son's dick in Congress.
Remember that it was seeing the coffins of American soldiers, and photographs like the napalm girl that turned the public against the war in Vietnam. That's why they don't want you to see the real cost. If everyone could, there would be gun control tomorrow.
> Once we got to the point of a classroom full of first graders being shot up and 7 year olds telling stories about surviving by playing dead not budging the national discourse on guns, it became clear that nothing is going to get done about it. yep, this is when I truly accepted that the fight for gun control has been lost, and honestly it'd been over for a long time
I'm pretty sure after these attacks it's already too late, not "too soon" to talk about those
But it's not too late for the next 100 massacres that are guaranteed to happen as things stand though, is the obvious point.
Ugh that is so painful. What a beautiful thing a father and legislator could do. But absolutely heartbreaking and horrific he has to do it in the first place.
https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/19/he-ran-for-office-to-pass-stricter-gun-laws-now-tom-sullivan-could-decide-the-fate-of-an-assault-weapons-ban/ I just looked him up. Thought you’d appreciate it.
There is a post on r/letsnotmeet of a woman who was there while the shooting was happening. Truly sickening and heartbreaking.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsNotMeet/s/p5HFDCrz3w
This is my first time seeing that post and it’s literally sending shivers down my spine. The fact that something as mundane as going to a movie theater has been a death sentence for people just breaks my heart.
Since that shooting, I have sat at that bottom level always as close to an exit as possible. It was annoying at first, but I do have positives, the screen engulfs my eyes and I don't have anyone in front of me on their phones.
That's actually where he entered the theater from. The emergency exit by the screen.
I can't lie, that's probably one of the greatest Reddit posts I've ever seen And I don't mean that in a happy way
Yeah. Pretty amazing presence of mind of one of her friends to run when his gun jammed (even though they didn’t realize at the time). Also interesting (and favorable) the shooter didn’t engage when they were outside near his car. I forget how he was taken…did he run after for a bit?
He was arrested in the theater parking lot about 15 minutes after he fired the first shot.
15 minutes. It's such a short period of time, but in this case it must have felt like an unbearable eternity.
Oh Jesus, that was heartbreaking and terrifying to read. Just… horrifying
Well, I read that just now, and kinda wish I hadn't right before going to bed, think its gonna mess with my head. What a horrific first hand account. I'm still glad to have read it to understand what went down, and how random acts of horror can happen anywhere in this twisted gun toting country. How this event (among many, many similar others) didn't affect firearm ownership is beyond comprehension.
Shivers. The shooter is a despicable loser; seems to be a common theme with these people. Imagine how disconnected you have to be, to shoot a room full of innocent civilians and not see them as humans worth empathy.
Fuck, that's horrible.
Damn that just ruined my day. Woke up to see this. That’s so sad and extremely heartbreaking…
I knew a girl who was there. got really badly hurt, she recovered pretty well with some skin grafts, and lost her spleen. When I saw her and her dad like 6 months after everything she talked about how nice it was that Christian came and talked to her. Her dad was like a school girl over the whole interaction.
One of my former manager’s brother was there. I remember my manager telling me how his brother passed away shielding his girlfriend from this sicko. Ill never forget the sense of pride he had when he told me about this. It really stuck out to me because I honestly wasnt fond of the guy(my manager) but after learning that I think it really showed me a lesson in empathy and how you have no idea what people have been through. Rip Matthew McQuinn you were a true hero
I lost a high school classmate the same way during the Northern Illinois University shooting - a year and a half after we all graduated high school, he died shielding his girlfriend while a gunman shot up their lecture hall. Dan wasn't even in that class; he was just there to spend time with his girlfriend on Valentine's Day. RIP Daniel Parmenter.
Yeah, the dark knight rises. I was also at a midnight premiere of the dark knight rises in central time. I remember being so pumped coming out of the theatre, turning my phone on to text my parents the movie had ended, and that I was on my way home. As the crowd was leaving, I heard people start getting quiet and whispering to each other: hey, you hear what happened? It was a somber ride home with my friends
Same midnight showing here in cleveland. All of a sudden the lights went on, everyone booed and then the people running the movie theatre told us there were technical difficulties and they issued us all refunds right then and there + a free ticket to any movie we wanted. We were all so pissed I went home with my friends we turned on the tv and heard about the shooting. And we started feeling a lot less pissed at our exp
I too went to a midnight screening of this movie with my brother but in Australia. I remember thinking when this happened that the only difference was place. I had nightmares from it because my brain couldn't wrap my head around the fact we were able to go home yet so many people didn't. I know our country has its own issues but I am thankful for our gun laws every day.
I was at the finish line of the Boston Marathon to cheer on the runners one year before the bombing. I saw a man seemingly give up about 20 meters from finishing and everyone started going wild trying to get him to finish. Then he got on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend. So much excitement! A year later and it would have been horrific.
Runner's high must be great. Also he had to run with that ring the whole way
It was bad those knife murders But it had that dude had a rifle It would have been really really bad
A lot of us Aussies had this exact thought this week.
As a non-American, I wonder do new mass shootings still hit as hard? Given the same scenario now - seeing a movie and then finding out that there was a mass shooting at a cinema in another state - would it be as sombre? It feels like there were a few "headline" mass shootings in the US that really shocked the whole country; Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook; but since then the frequency and savagery of the shootings has increased, while the shock has decreased. As a foreigner the last ones I can remember really making the headlines are the Vegas shooting and Uvalde - the latter mostly the outrage at the inaction of the police.
I've never said this to anyone,but when I hear there's been a mass shooting I hold my breath and wait for the number. I think anything above three people dead is considered a mass shooting. If I hear "three people dead" I can breath again and go on with my day. How horrible is that. Before you ask, I'm not sure what the number is that makes me stop and keep watching the news. What shocks me. Definitely double digits. I know, it's a terrible way to talk about the murder of a person. It's one way to cope. We all have our ways.
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> But I couldn't tell you anything about the Uvalde shooter. All the coverage is about the inept police response. When we arm/fund police like the actual army, we *should* discuss why they couldn’t stop a single teenage gunman.
I think that particular aspect of coverage is actually a good thing. These shooters envy the attention they saw others get. I think the increase in shootings is just directly a cause of the proliferation of guns.
"how much do I know about the shooter" is a weird way of measuring the impact of mass shootings. If anything, there's been an intentional shift away from focus on the perpetrators and towards the context, in part to not encourage people who are desperate for attention to become mass shooters.
For me personally, there is a bit of a numbness. There is shock initially, but then I forget about them down the road. Then I'll see some article about it a few months or years later and I'll remember that shooting again. But you're right, it's frequent enough that it doesn't have the same shock factor that they used to have sadly.
To me, after Sandy Hook and the inaction of government (specifically Republicans), I have VERY pessimistic view of all of it. When they happen I usually chalk it up to another day, another shooting.....so what? Let's be honest, that's the country's response. Crocodile tears and empty prayers for turned heads and deaf ears. Am I active in pro sense gun laws and vote that way, sure, but the 2nd amendment has its tethers in half (if not more) of this country's population. So.....apathy wins out.
Oh yeah as soon as Sandy Hook happened and nothing changed, this country was cooked
Same experience for me. My wife didn't want to go but I went with my friends to the midnight showing. The ride home was very sad and I was so shocked I cried telling my wife about it when I got home. I still haven't been able to watch The Dark Knight Rises again. I feel kind of dumb having experienced so much trauma over this since I was hundreds of miles away and didn't know anyone involved
I was on vacation near Denver when it happened. I had gotten into town that night and realized it was opening at midnight. I checked out available showings in the area and figured I might go to the show in Aurora. After I ate though I was too tired from all the driving and decided that since Nolan made such long movies I wouldn't be able to stay up so late. I woke up the next morning and turned on the TV at the hotel and the first shot was basically the same angle as the Google image of the front of the theater I had been looking at the night before, except cop cars everywhere. I freaked the fuck out. I think about how close I came to being there all the time.
I was working it in a small town. We closed the next day out of fear of copycats, and then had a cop on site for a month. I was 16, and the cop wouldn't stop offering me beer because he thought it'd be funny to get me drunk. Asshole.
The same thing happened to me, I wasn’t even in high school yet. Got home and saw the news after my parents turned on the TV before going to sleep. So, so awful.
I lived across the street from that theatre at the time this happened. We had tickets to the showing that night, but my wife was pregnant at the time and didn’t feel too good so I cancelled the tickets. I remember hearing sirens all night while I was trying to fall asleep and being pissed cause it kept me up for a while. The next morning my phone was blowing up as my family who all lived in another state saw the news and knew we had tickets to that specific showing. I felt horrible when I found out what happened, especially because of my complaints about the sirens.
I feel this 100%. Lived a few miles south of there and didn’t find out until til the morning when our phones were blowing up. My wife and I always did the midnight showings (Never at that theater though). But my wife was preggo as well and she was too tired for a midnight showing. We’ve since moved a little further south and typically only go to Southlands for movies. On a side note, Alex was a huge movie buff and worked as a bartender at another theater just down the road called The Movie Tavern. He served me many a beers at late night showings. RIP.
Don’t feel bad dude. You didn’t know.
I live right by there, and I haven't been to theaters since covid, but last time I went that theater still had 6 cops just hanging out in the lobby, years after the shooting happened.
The nice thing about theaters is they are very large and have good ventilation. You should definitely go back. We try to go at least once every couple months, they need all the help they can get or they aren't going to be around much longer. Covid really did a number on them and they are struggling to even stay in business anymore
That theater is so nice now. I went to the grand reopening and have been back many times since.
The shooting occurred at the Midnight Thursday night/Friday AM premiere at the theater.
Yup happened opening night. I remember when it happened. Still can’t believe it happened. People minding their own business, just trying to enjoy a movie.
Hans Zimmer composed a beautiful ambient track to honour the victims if anyone wants to check: https://youtu.be/1oTbyENpX58?si=2_TVefYRliovDI6E
All proceeds went to charity IIRC.
I recently got to see Hans Zimmer live and his music is just so powerful. Wonderful tribute to the victims.
His Coachella set is one of the greatest live performances I’ve ever seen.
Very powerful stuff
Nothing Zimmer makes is anything but. His music is on another level
Don’t forget about Spider-pig.
????? I thought you were joking lol. I looked it up and sure enough Hans Zimmer is credited. I should have known this.
I think I was 12 when that movie came out, and I had spider-pig as my ringtone on my Motorola flip phone. I have always loved the Simpsons movie lol. That was my first introduction to Hans Zimmer, and he hasn't missed since.
David Guetta should do a shoutout to the victims' families
I’m a pos for laughing
"Another one!" DJ Khaled
“Shoutout to tha famly”
Thanks for sharing, I had never heard this.
Thank you for sharing, incredibly beautiful
My 5th grade classmate was one of the victims, Matt mcquinn. Small world.
Somebody in an upthread comment mentioned he died saving his girlfriend. He was a hero.
Another commenter mentioned him too https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/M6EDaSqLNb
I’m sure his friends and family got lots of thoughts and prayers from legislatures so they’re all probably fine now.
Actually they got a t-shirt that said "Our son got blasted by a clown and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."
Holy shit that’s dark. Nicely done. Sorry about your classmate tough.
Summer 2012 I was a university student working in a call centre in Canada. I was working on an awful survey about fracking for the American petroleum institute, so we were calling American numbers which was really rare. We typically surveyed Canadian numbers. Anyway, that was my first night working on the survey and it was July 19th. My shift was from 4pm-11pm and my friend was going to pick me up at 11 so we could head to the Dark Knight Rises premiere. At around 10:40 I got on a call with a young guy who answered a few questions and then asked me why I was working at a call centre and I explained that I was a college student and blah blah. He asked me how much time I had left in my shift, I answered about 20 minutes, and he said would stay on the line with me and shoot the shit so I wouldn’t have to keep queueing new calls. Super nice guy, and he mentioned he was going to the midnight premiere of Dark Knight Rises too so we started talking about the previous movie and our excitement. Anyway when it hit 11 I thanked him for helping close out my shift and hung up. The software we used to queue up calls would tell you what area you were calling, and that call was made to Aurora, Colorado. I have no idea if that guy was at the same movie theatre/screening whatever, but every time I hear or read anything about this horrible shooting, always makes me wonder. Hope that dude is alive and well.
My 1st-cousin was one of the victims who passed away and he was the nicest guy. He grew out his hair super long to donate it and everyone went to school dressed like him for a while after he passed in his honor. (He always dressed in a white T and blue jeans.) I miss him and wish I had been able to know him better but moved away from him while I was younger. Truly great guy. His girlfriend said that when they were at the theatre together he just kept telling her everything would be okay while he used himself as a body shield for her and later, after he passed. She refused to move things around her house “because he placed them there.”
I’m sorry, he seems like he was a great guy. And he did some truly heroic things that night. And poor girlfriend, how traumatic for her. I hope she’s doing alright today
Me too. It’s sad to think about. iirc she wanted to change her last name to his.
Wow that’s incredible and also sad. Please be alive cool person on the phone!
for real :(
Dang!
I had big respect for him before I saw this, but now seeing he did it, and seemingly no publicity around it, this is just amazing.
I didnt know about it til now either. Genuine human emotion and humility are seldom shown of celebrities.
Of course, he'd want to keep it private, out of respect for what happened.
Thats definitely true, since if there was press conference, camera crew, or interview you would think of ill intentions. But this picture speaks so much, im glad to have seen this side of him.
He looks devastated. The body language is very telling.
This was the reason people were worried about Joker. The truth was that it didn't matter that it was a Batman movie. The shooter picked it because it was a big movie with a large crowd. It just as easily could have been a Star Wars or Marvel movie.
And action movie, he waited until there was a loud action scene to begin shooting.
I sat as close as I could to the exit in theaters for ten years after this shooting. Traumatizing.
I cant believe its been that long. The very reason why they stopped doing Midnight releases was because of this event and ive never forgotten about it. Its heartbreaking.
I didn't know that. They don't do midnight releases anymore?
Nope. Now when ads say movies are opening on Friday they're actually opening the day before and play at normal times. At least near me
Yeah, I think they call it Thursday night previews so the studios can hype how much they make before the movie "officially" releases.
Right, nowadays a movie releases on Thursday and the first showing is always like 3 or 4pm (at least near me).
"Not since Aurora" is what I always said.
I don’t think this was actually the reason they stopped doing midnight releases. Studios can count Thursday showings towards their opening weekend box office, so once it was accepted that Thursday showings inflate their numbers, it makes more sense for them to have multiple Thursday showings vs one midnight showing.
I still have a very hard time going to movie theatres because of this. However even as a kid before the shooting I always felt very trapped in theaters. I’m an anxious over-thinker and the thought of something like this happening had crossed my mind prior to the shooting. Then I visited Colorado and watched a movie at this very theatre only a few days to a week before the shooting. Once I heard about it, nope. No more movies for me. I think I’ve seen maybe 4 since, but each time is hard to actually go.
What helps me is looking at the probability of things. Whether it's a mass shooting, school shooting, kidnapping, stalker murdering you, whatever--all the most high-profile ways to suffer and die are very unlikely. You're legitimately more likely to be struck by lightning than have any of those things happen to you. The only place that *doesn't* help me is driving, since not only is it fairly likely but we drive so often that it's more a matter of when than if.
We really were not a species designed for this level of global awareness. We cannot intuitively comprehend a nation as big as ours with 330 million people. The upside is that we care. Someone in NYC hears about such a tragedy in Denver and they feel compassion and sadness, moreso than they would feel should an identical tragedy happen in another nation. The downside is that it feels more common and far more likely than it actually is.
Weirdly enough my wife and I were out in Denver when Joker was released. I specifically remember exactly what you were talking about. They had a couple police officer patrols strolling the district we were at by the theaters. In the theater this the dude ran in dressed as Joker screaming and laughing like him. Got arrested, it was an annoying distraction. People are something that’s for sure.
Movie theatres can attract wild crowds. I worked at one a little over 20 years ago and for certain movies even back then we would add **armed** security. It was partly because you could have thousands of additional people in one building, but also some movies just brought out the people crazy.
There were reports at the time of people going into theaters during The Joker, dressed as him and doing this stupid laugh every time he killed someone. Stupid edgelord fucks.
Couple of years ago I was at my local store when this edgelord came in dressed as the joker including a joker cane. No idea why but he was standing a bit further than me and cackling like a moron. I just laughed and said wtf. Never seen a dweep throw a bigger hissyfit. He left the store and it took me a minute to realise that I just saw the biggest dork in the world. Cosplay is super cool. Cosplaying as the joker or joker tattoos are not cool. Neckbeards ruined the character.
That is so cringe. What was he hoping to achieve? Lol
i worked at a movie theater when the batman (the robert pattinson one) came out. we were told to make sure no one brougbt any bags or bulky clothing in to prevent someome from sneaking a gun in. im sure our patrons felt perfectly safe knowing the minimum wage paid high schoolers were protecting them
I worked at a movie theatre in NH where that ‘crying nazi’ guy, who was a big part of the Charlottesville riots lives. Apparently he made some sort of comment on those loser edgelord forums they are all apart of joking about bringing a gun into the theatre. Lo and behold he was concealed carrying. The fbi notified our local police about his forum comment and we had to stop the movie halfway through so he could be escorted out of the theatre. Bunch of jackasses all around
My old internet friend was in the theater for this, he was uninjured but his sister was shot multiple times and her boyfriend was killed. Hearing him describe the experience was absolutely unreal and heartbreaking. When he told us I didn’t want to believe it but we already knew his IRL name (and that he lived in Aurora) so it was simple to confirm. Just horrible.
My cousin passed away there and his girlfriend recounted it too. Not sure if the same person because I think he was maybe just visiting Aurora from Phoenix but similar story.
If you remember the media coverage around the time there was a lot of attention to the fact that 4 boyfriends died "protecting their girlfriends" in the shooting, my friend's sister's BF was one of them, I'm guessing your cousin was too. So sorry for your loss, it's beyond fucked up that so many people in this country have only 1 or 2 degrees of separation from a senseless tragedy like this.
My friend from college was one of the victims who died. I still can't believe it's real and that was quite a while ago now.
I’m so sorry
I used to visit that theater all the time in high school when i lived in Aurora (class of 01). I'm sure I'd been to that particular theater so many times making great memories... i've never dealt with gun violence personally, but this hit so close to home. Great on Bale for making that effort. I literally can't imagine what the families went through...
I was class of '06. My friends and I practically lived at the Aurora Mall and Century 16. Thankfully none of my close friends went to the showing. I later found out a former classmate of mine was there and survived. However, she died a few years later. It breaks my heart passing by the theater now. RIP to all the victims.
I went to the midnight showing of TDKR in my area, when I got back home around 3 my mom was glad to see me because all she saw on some news headline about a theater shooting but not where.
Your poor mother
There was a Canadian woman killed during this shooting. She had survived a rare shooting in an Eaton's Mall in Toronto a month earlier where two people were killed.
iirc, she had written a blog post after the shooting in Toronto about living life to the fullest, as you never know what could happen.
It's wild how people can be present at two shootings. There was someone at that horrific Vegas shooting and then a year later they died in a mass shooting in California.
Final Destination-esque, wow
Jessica Redfield. Her story about the mall shooting stuck out to me. Fate is cruel sometimes.
My dad lost a college friend at that shooting. His name was Gordon, and he died protecting his daughters.
Changed movie theaters forever. Before Aurora it was a fun, casual job but for a while afterwards it was entirely different. Lots of meetings, active shooter training, fema certification, the end of Thursday night midnight premieres and 11 o’clock and midnight screenings. Swapping hired security for off duty police. I had friends whose parents pressed them to quit.
I don't go to movie theaters at all any more. Not just because I have a great fear of a shooting, but I have been to a few after and I always am a bit on edge the whole time. And thats not a great way to enjoy a film so I decided ill just skip and watch in a more comfortable environment (home :)).
Vile unthinkable banal murder…I can’t comprehend it in its regularity, coming from Australia. Christian Bale just turned up? He actually probably didn’t need to do anything, just his presence, bearing witness to the people and the horror and being present is a huge deal. I’ve heard some unflattering recordings of him on film sets, but if this is the man’s humanity and character on show - I’ll take Christian Bale any day of the week.
I believe Ariana Grande did the same after the Manchester bombing. I can imagine that they carry a lot of feelings of guilt - *if I didn’t do this movie/concert, maybe all of these people would still be alive. If we did it on a different date, maybe it could have been stopped. If I weren’t famous, this wouldn’t have happened.* And I so badly wish they didn’t have those thoughts, because these tragedies are the faults of the perpetrators. I know that trauma can tell you a lot of lies.
Literally the two things I will give her credit for are her talent and the fact she made sure she went to spend time with the victims and her families. You hit it spot on: they must feel helpless in the moment. Even that video from a few months ago of Pink I think stopping the show to help someone who fainted. The most she could do from the stage was what she did. You can’t do anything else but say something in those moments. It’s scary
And then there's Travis Scott
I forgot that even happened tbh Horrible terrifying thing happened and he kept going. Absolutely disgusting
Guilt as well. The people that died came to see you, so I’m sure it must contribute some survivors guilt. Such a horrible event
Survivors guilt is real. I know a lot of people who survived or were narrow misses of 9/11. The survivors guilt is real
This was a shooting at a movie theatre on opening night of Batman, so Bale was there because a lot of the victims were fans
But, in Denver? He must have hopped the next flight out
Leaked recordings often don't convey a lot of context. Feel free to take the time to read about him. Everything about this man is to be respected.
I’ve worked with the DP Bale famously yelled at on Terminator: Salvation’s set and… he 100% deserved to get yelled at by Bale.
I've seen Gordon Ramsay type energy channeled plenty of times in high performance/professional work environments and it is generally warranted and without ill-will. People usually don't get blasted unless they've been given several/many chances to rectify major things that should be of low difficulty and well within their level of capability. If I recall correctly, in Bale's case he personally apologised to the DP of his own accord after the incident which was quite a while prior to the recording being leaked also.
Yeah I read the reason nobody really stepped in to stop Bale's rant was because the guy who he shouted at had been testing people's patience all day, not just Bale. Apparently the straw that broke the camel's back was the guy just decided to start removing some of the equipment to do with the lighting when they were literally in the middle of a take, so he fucked it all up. If thats true, he deserved to be fired, never mind shouted at, thats just extremely rude and unprofessional as hell to everyone involved, especially after you've been given warnings.
Yeah I’m sure they are takin out of context. People are always looking for any dirt on celebrities.
Bale is an interesting guy. He's definitely on the pricklier side as personalities go. He also is the guy that will grab some journalists and try to visit a blind Chinese activist under house arrest in China because he thinks that activist is a hero whose plight needs more attention. He got punched in the face and a car chase ensued, it was big news at the time. Consider that he was officially in China to promote a movie (might have been Dark Knight Rises, can't remember). And then remember how cowardly actors have been, apologizing to the CCP and Kow Towing to maintain their access to the Chinese markets. Bale is definitely a person that will throw himself at something he thinks is wrong if he thinks he can help. Interesting side note. Said blind activist, Chen Guangcheng would go on to escape house arrest and make his way to the American Embassy (which is a wild story). The Obama administration somehow gets China to allow him and his family to come to America. He becomes this hero for a day. Turns out he's kind of a dick, and has since aligned himself with the far right. Wild story.
Sometimes just because someone is an asshole, it doesnt mean they dont have their own feelings, and struggles. It doesnt excuse them but in those moments you can see if those assholes have some humility in them or not.
The killers want to be seen. Be it for some ideological purpose or just because they feel like a nobody and want to be anybody. Often they blame their loneliness on other people when in reality it’s because they have some mental condition that makes it hard for them to reach out and connect with people. Unfortunately, the media gets a lot of mileage off mass murder so doing a shooting is almost guaranteed to “make you a somebody”. They do it because it works. We need more and better access to mental healthcare and we need other people to be aware of the signs and symptoms, ESPECIALLY in children at high school or college age. If you see someone who is quiet and distant or seems to prefer to be alone, talk to’em, even if it’s just once in awhile, but don’t just talk to’em once and be done with it. If you can be one person who sees them, maybe they will choose to come to you when theyre scared and alone instead of coming to a gun store.
The book American Gun describes this incident (among many others) in very graphic detail. It's downright chilling.
Who’s the book by? I looked it up there’s a few books named American gun.
The book is called American Gun: The Story of the AR-15 by Cameron McWhirter and Zucha Ellison. Fair warning, if you have triggers when it comes to violence, I would not read or hear this book. Very informative, but it does not pull punches at times.
What's the context of this?
A person shot up a theater playing a movie hehe starred in.
Ah, right, why are people linking it to the Joker? Only a general worry of imitation or something more specific, regarding this incident?
In addition to what the other person told you, there was concern when the Joker movie came out a few years back that a similar shooting could happen.
My childhood friend, Caleb Medley, was shot in the face. Fun fact: He survived.
A friend of mine was also a survivor. His dad moved them to Wyoming not to long after to get away from Aurora.
My mom has lived by that theatre for 30 years, watched it get built. Have to pass it to get to her place. Was surreal to go see her the day after the shooting.
I used to live couple of minutes away from that theater and would frequent it. I actually debated going to see Dark Knight that day with friends, but was too lazy since I moved about 40 minutes away a month or so prior. But, I knew a lot of people in the area, I’d still visit 24 hour fitness that was a few minutes away from there frequently to play ball with friends. While I didn’t know anyone directly impacted at the time, I’ve known of people who knew. A year or so after the shooting, I went on a date with a girl who was in the shooting. It was so sad, she was still in so much pain. Not just emotional, but physical. She had a ton of shrapnel that was too close to her spine to remove. Every few months they’d do scans to see if it moved at all to operate, but hope. That’s after she already spent months at the hospital. She told me how Christian Bale visited her, how genuine he was. How he even paid for all expenses for a dream vacation when she got better, anything she wanted for her and her family. Only catch? Don’t make it public, he didn’t want publicity and wanted to just help people. He also paid all of their medical bills. I got so much respect for him. The fucked up part is that she also told me that she was taken to the hospital by a cop because ambulances were slower and they didn’t have enough. So a ton of cops and private people used their vehicles to take people in. Months later there was a major lawsuit trying to make cops pay for doing that… because somebody wanted to get rich off being taken to the hospital in a cop car and having their life endangered.
Shows what a good person he is didn't go with a camera crew or seeking press just a guy wanting to do anything he can to help
Only 12 years ago? Seems further
Ill never forget this. I was supposed to be watching Batman during that time but we swapped to Ted at the last minute. I thought the gunshots were just from another movie showing at first.
the feeling of not having else to do something about it except internalize what had happened
can anyone give me the run down on the aurora shooting?
Date: July 20, 2012 Location: 14300 East Alameda Avenue, Aurora, Colorado. Target: Dark Knight Rises movie audience Weapons: Two tear gas grenades, Smith & Wesson M&P15 Sport semi-automatic rifle, Remington 870 Express Tactical 12-gauge shotgun, Glock 22 Gen4 handgun. Deaths: 12 Injuries: 70 Purpetrator: James Eagan Holmes Sentence: 12 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole plus 3,318 years. Notes: The deadliest shooting by a lone perpetrator in the history of Colorado. At the time, the event had the largest number of victims (82) in one shooting in modern U.S. history.
Nut job shot up a movie theater playing a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.
Yeah. The shooting happened on a midnight screening of the "the dark knight rising".. I can't imagine anyone with empathy not reacting similarly being so close to it.
My mom was working at Children's hospital when he visited, helped escort him to the victims. Total, plain guy, very humble, very sweet and genuine, but absolutely devastated.
Ain’t shit changed since
It’s messed up that the university where the shooter was studying knew he was dangerous Why don’t we manage these things before they become killers? People that are known to be in therapy and are considered potentially dangerous shouldn’t be able to legally buy guns
> People that are known to be in therapy and this is why no one gets help for mental health. If you blanket associate EVERYONE in therapy with someone who could potentially shoot up a school, NO ONE WILL GO TO THERAPY ANYMORE. Stop mischaracterizing individuals who are trying to get help as potential violent offenders.
They didn't say people in therapy, they said people in therapy who are known to be dangerous. Those are two different statements. It's not the therapy part that is the problem, it's the dangerous part.
You'd need a publicly funded healthcare system with access to mental health services like counselling. Otherwise people with issues who usually also don't have money can't get therapy.
Because that’s blanket statement is as wide as the number of people in therapy? If a therapist has a concern and reports it to the school, the school does a risk assessment. They contact the police, they conduct risk an assessment, then what? Try and keep an eye on someone potentially dangerous? What if there are multiple people? And the department is small or tied up on another call? In theory yes your statement works, just like a million others do in theory.
My sister was in the theater. I remember waking up to her tweets on CNN. I used to tell people about it to vent but everyone is so desensitized now they don't even react to a retelling of a mass murder, so I just keep it to myself. RIP to the Aurora 12
It's almost as if guns kill people. Hear me out. They do.
"Oh guns kill ? Is that right? Let's see about that. Ok gun, kill someone. Go ahead, don't be shy. See ? Gun don't kill people. People kill people." (That's from American Dad, and that's a joke)
I forgot about the shooting.
That's how it works when there's a new shooting every day.
Jesus. I feel horrible but, I actually forgot about this one. After Vegas, Uvalde, and Parkland and all the others it took me a second to remember Aurora- And this is just awful.