At least 12 dead and dozens injured, several seriously.
One gunman and one crowded theater.
The specter of copycats.
The Peninsula woke up this morning to live video coming from Aurora, Colo., where a gunman reportedly wearing a gas mask and a bulletproof vest opened fire during a midnight showing of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, a movie expected to gross $200 million this weekend.
The number of deaths and injuries wasn't confirmed at the time this story published. But no matter what the final numbers are, there is one definitive: It's a tragedy.
Authorities have identified the gunman as 24-year-old James Eagan Holmes, a University of Colorado School of Medicine medical dropout from San Diego, Associated Press reports.
Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks of 2001, Americans have been on various levels of alert, but anyone with an ounce of cynicism has recognized that movie theaters, malls and school events—so-called soft targets because they are gathering locations with little security—are ripe for domestic terror or deranged madmen.
"Praying for everyone hurt and affected by the theater shooting in Aurora," Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin wrote on her Twitter page (@FranklinMissy) from the Olympic team's training camp in Vichy, France. "I'm in total disbelief and shock. Things happen so quickly. #pray"
Franklin is a swimmer on the Colorado Stars team based in Aurora.
"I'm so sorry to hear of the tragedy in Colorado," Olympian Ryan Lochte wrote. My prayers are with the families & friends of the victims."
The Friday morning massacre at the Century 16 in Aurora took place 19 miles and 13 years from Columbine High, but it’s the kind of tragedy that can open up wounds in every region in America.
On the Peninsula, a former Hillsdale High School student brought a chainsaw, 10 pipe bombs and a knife to campus in an attempt to kill his teachers in a 2009 incident.
Alexander Youshock was last year of attempted murder for the Aug. 24, 2009, incident, in which teachers tackled him, preventing anyone from being injured.
All such events—not just the local ones—remind us of just how vulnerable we are.
And they bring the specter of copycats who think they can do it just a little better—or bigger.
Do we keep the status quo and prove that we haven’t been beaten, or do we make changes because we want to see next year, want to see our kids get married and our grandkids grow up?
The incident Friday morning is likely to start a discussion—a very real, very serious discussion—about personal safety in public places.
Let's start it here.
Should metal detectors become as standard as popcorn machines at movie theaters? Should there be armed security, or will a thick dude in a yellow jacket be enough to stop someone carrying a gun who wants to get in with or without a ticket? Will there be no more dress-up at the theater, which apparently allowed the Aurora gunman to enter with a handgun, a rifle, a gas canister and a gas mask?
What do you think this morning in light of Aurora, the newest name in tragedy?
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