7-20-12

These last few days have been some of the most difficult days of my life. I’ve think I’ve felt every emotion known to man. Some moments I feel like I’m moving forward and sometimes I feel like I’m moving backwards.  I’ve been struggling with quite a few things since the shooting. One of them is how to tell my story. I’ve shared it with some people already who are very close to me.  Each time I tell it, I recall a different detail.  My memory of that very early morning has been filled with fragments of stuff that frankly I think my mind has suppressed. It is now, 3 days later, that I think the whole tragic memory is complete. I’ll be honest; there are a few details I’m leaving out because I just don’t want to talk about yet. I’ve only told that to my wife.

Before I begin, let me tell you how I am feeling right now. My body is sore. My chest hurts from either crying or trying to keep from crying. My shoulders hurt from being slouched in grief. My legs hurt from standing.  My mind is exhausted from going through thoughts and random slide shows of visions. My hands are sore from constant folding in prayer.  I feel like everything around me is moving slower. I recently went to Wal-Mart, first place I’ve gone by myself, and felt like I had like a big sign on my head that said “HI – I WAS AT THE SHOOTING”. Words can not describe adequately enough how I feel. Frankly, no emotion has lasted longer than an hour it seems. Well, one feeling has everlasted this whole. I will get to that later.

So I’ve been eagerly awaiting the final installment of the Batman movies for awhile. I’m your typical male. I love action movies with explosions. Then you couple that with another typical male love, which is superheroes, you have a highly anticipated movie. So I jumped at the chance to see this movie at midnight. Yes, I worked approx 4 hours from the time the movie would’ve ended, but hey, I can do it. Now I’ve been to midnight screenings before and there was always a long line you wait in for 2 hours. At this theater, which I’ve never been to before, there was no line. People were able to just go directly into the theater.  So we went directly in and got what I feel are primo seats. Center of theater, center of seats, etc. As we waited the 2 plus hours for the movie to start, there was a lot of fellowship. We all knew each other from church. Some were new people to meet. It was great to see Jeremiah. It was like a “bonus” to get to see this with him since he was visiting. So as the lights went down, excitement grew in the room.  There were even some cheers.  The previews were for some other movies that will probably elicit large midnight showing crowds as well. (Superman, Hobbit, etc).

So finally, after waiting 2 ½ hours, the main attraction starts. Now I’ve seen many people talk or write about what they went through, and they can’t remember exactly where in the movie we were when the chaos started. For some reason, it’s clear as day to me. There was a scene about 15 minutes in, where Anne Hathaway, who plays cat woman, is in a bar making a “deal” for something. She ends up tricking the guy she is meeting with and a police raid comes in and opens fire fight. It was at that moment, my life changed forever.

We heard this very loud “pop pop pop” sound to our right. We all look over to see what it is. I saw some puffs of white smoke in the air. I assumed it was just some ‘punks’ playing some fireworks in the theater. I’d say approx a third of the theater was standing, looking over to our right to see what the commotion was, myself included. The rest of the crowd seemed focused in trying to pay attention to the movie, despite the ‘distraction’. I stood there, waiting for the theater’s security to come in and take these hooligans out who set off some fireworks.  Now keep in mind, it’s very loud in the theater and dark because the movie is still playing. So as I am standing there, waiting for security to come and get these guys, I notice one of them get up and hold his neck. Then I see another guy get up and is holding his side. His friend then gets up too and appears to be helping him. I quickly thought at that point initially that they were just suffering from an injury for using a firework indoors. So my gut was like “see, that’s why I don’t mess with them”. I then thought to myself, where the heck is security? They haven’t come yet. By this point, 2/3 of the crowd is now standing.  I am still thinking it’s a fireworks prank. I mean lets get real, who among us in this situation, when trying to figure it out, lists “mass shooting” as a possible cause for this? So then, I happen to start looking around the theater to see what else is going on. I remember that the crowd was quite illuminated because of the scene that was now on the screen was a bright shot. Most faces looked confused, inquisitive, and some looked annoyed. I am sure my face looked confused. I remember seeing a little boy about 3 rows behind me, looked to me about 10 years old, just crying his eyes out. I then started to get angry with the people whom I thought were the firework pranksters.

Then suddenly to my left, a guy comes running out of the hallway and yells something.  Somehow, with my deafness, amongst the loud movie sounds, I heard what he said. It chilled my spine instantly. I suddenly went from confused to scared. He says, “don’t go out the front, there is a guy out there shooting people”. Although the movie was still playing, I swear my head went silent. I first thought of my wife. I then thought of my kids. I thought of my brother.  I thought, this is it.  At that moment, when I heard what that guy said, I somehow equated that statement to mean that “we’re next”, that a shooter is on his way into this room to start shooting us. Even though there were exits, in my mind, I felt like they were locked and we were trapped. I felt like a sitting duck. It was at this point that the fire alarm started. Having worked in fire sprinklers, I was familiar with the sound. It did not bring on any ‘additional’ panic within me.

So in response to the warning we heard, people began to start swarming towards the back exit. At this point I noticed a few things. I noticed that some people were still sitting and watching the movie. Somehow, that gave me a false sense that maybe I’m just misunderstanding what’s going on and they do. There is no danger, there is no threat. The other thing I noticed was somehow, people were proceeding to the back exit in a rather ‘orderly’ fashion. I remember thinking “please don’t panic and cause someone to get trampled”. It seemed as if there was a large bottleneck jam going on at the back exit.  So somehow, we started to make our way up to our right, up the stairs, and out towards the front, exactly where we were told not to go. Why did we go that way, I have no idea.

So we walked up the stairs. It was weird because inside, I was like “run!!! Get me out of here”, but all around me we were exiting at the speed of a fire drill at school, or so it seemed. Maybe everything was already in slow motion. Now at this point it’s probably been 5-7 minutes at least since we first saw the “smoke”.  As we made our way up the stairs, the alarm was blaring, movie was still playing. It was still very loud. There were still some people still sitting in their seats attempting to watch the movie, even as most of us are leaving the theater. Again, inside I was running but outside I wasn’t. Frankly, there was no room for me to run anyways. There was a mass exit going on. All I could think of was, get me to the top of the stairs so I can get out of here.

When I finally got to the top of the stairs, we were on a long balcony that was above the main lobby. You can go only right or left, which would lead you to a long stairwell on the sides. When I got thru the door and onto the balcony, I changed. My impression of what was going on changed. I think it was then I began to understand the magnitude of what I was seeing. I looked right and saw people running. I looked straight and could see over the balcony onto the lobby. I saw some very big Aurora police department officers carrying huge guns. (I’m not familiar with ‘gun lingo’ so I don’t know what guns they had).  They were 2 or 3 of them, walking with authority, directly under the balcony towards theater 9. I looked left and saw people spilling out of theater 9. I saw nothing but horror, panic, fear, anguish, on these people’s faces. Most of them had blood of some sort on them.  By quick glance, I knew going left was my quickest route of there. So I went left. Almost instantly I smelled something. I don’t know if it was mace or tear gas, or maybe the fear in the air, but wither way it made it hard to see and breathe. I started coughing, not going a breath without an accompanying cough. I heard someone say “put your shirt on your mouth, it’ll help. So I did and I don’t think it helped. So at this point I begin to make my way left, the slow moving line was suddenly speed walking.  Let me take a moment to explain what it sounded like. I heard sounds of people screaming. I heard sounds of people saying “oh my God” or “why?!”.  I heard the sound of people’s feet rumbling down stairs. I even remember hearing someone’s cell phone ring. It was the old fashioned ringer people have on their phones. I heard crying. I think if I could sum up all the sounds I heard into one word, I think I heard pain.

So I made my way left with my shirt on my mouth. As I approached the “turn” of the balcony and to the stairwell, I noticed one of the employees from the theater standing in the corner. She looked like a manager of some sort. She had ‘nice’ regular clothes on and no uniform. She had a name tag and I even read her name and it bugs me that I can’t recall what it was.  She was absolutely broken. She was terrified. She was just frozen, watching us all scurry by. As I made the turn and began to proceed down the stairs, I looked deeper into the lobby. My thoughts were that the shooter or shooters were in the lobby ready to open fire. I could see towards the front door outside and saw nothing but police officers. I just thought, Lord, get me behind that wall of police officers. I also saw people running from within the lobby towards the door, just covered in blood. My fear reached its 2^nd highest point I’ve ever reached in my life, and frankly, it stayed at the level until I talked to my wife on the phone.  I descended down the stairs, not wanting to see anything else, I stared straight ahead. The stairs felt like I was walking down the world’s tallest flight of stairs. So I decided that I should focus on one thing to keep me from looking over the stairs into the lobby. I stared at my friend and Pastor Ian’s backpack all the way down the stairs. I tell you, that backpack never looked more beautiful in my life. As I went down the stairs, having no clue as to the status of the shooter and or shooters (we had no idea at the time there was only one) I began to fear I’d be shot when I made my break for the door from the staircase. I reached the bottom of the stairs, didn’t even look into the lobby, just looked straight at the front door, and ran. There was a trash can that was in my direct path to the door, so I had to alter my path to get out. As I was running, I can see at the side of my eye, a police officer running right next to me, towards the exit. He was carrying a limp, lifeless victim in his arms. He bumped me slightly in his fast footed approach out the door. If I didn’t have to maneuver my route around the trash can on the floor, I probably would’ve never noticed him. I remember as the officer ran faster than most of us, as he sprinted past and ahead of me, I noticed he was in “basic” uniform. What I mean is that all other officers I saw had extra gear of some sort on. I could deduct that he ran in, with reckless abandon for his own safety, with only a heart to save and rescue.  Wow, that’s an amazing person.

So I finally meet the threshold of reaching outside the theater. Who knew that warm, humid air would feel so good my face?  I just ran. We all were running. The sounds of anguish, pain, fear, sirens, chaos, and panic filled the warm Aurora skies.  As I got outside, my first thought was, am I really safe yet? Is there a shooter out here waiting to shoot us as we came out? I had convinced myself that I’d be safe once I got outside, but I didn’t feel like it. I just kept waiting for that gun shot sound followed by pain in my back. I was waiting to fall on my knees and die. So halfway through the parking lot, I can see my car, the Element. It looked like a space ship that I could just jump into and fly out of this place. I then hear someone next to me say, hey bro, I think you got shot. At first I thought that voice was talking to me. I look up and the same guy I’d been running behind since I got outside, I never noticed, that his entire back of his shirt was covered in blood. So he and his girlfriend stop and he takes off his shirt, and there, inches from my face, was someone with a gunshot wound on his back and I could see the bullet. His girlfriend screams in horror and I hear him asking her “did I get shot??  Did I??”. For some reason, that made me run again. I get to the sidewalk. It’s at that time that I turn and look back at the theater for the first time. I turn and it’s then I began to see the true devastation that was occurring. I think I heard the sounds of sirens for a good 45 minutes after that.

So I look back at the theater and begin to wonder, “is the shooting over?”.  But somehow, that thought was put away without any “confirming” evidence. So I looked back and people were coming my way in droves. I saw a young girl in her 20’s holding her chest with blood pouring out of her hand and she was saying “I need to find my Dad, I need to find my Dad”. She was intercepted by a police officer. I see another guy holding his side, blood on his face, stumbling towards us. He is intercepted by another police officer who holds him, and then you see the victim pass out. The officer then yells on the top of his lungs to his partner, “John, get the *bleeping* squad car” and the car comes and he lifts the victim into the back seat, jumps in, shuts the door and they speed off.  I see a little boy walking with his Dad and the Dad has a head injury. I suddenly hear to my left a guy screaming “oooooowwwwwwww!!!” very loudly.  This was the first time I’d really moved since I stopped running. I went over to help the 5/6 people already carrying him. We got him up the small rock hill and into the paramedics. I returned to the rest of my group as we were standing, taking roll, making sure everyone was accounted for.

I then began to wonder, when do I call Monique? Do I wake her up? I didn’t want to startle her, but wanted her to somehow know I was ok without waking her up in California. My phone was dying as well. So I just sent her a quick text that said “You up?”. I decided that if she replied, I’d call her instantly. If not, I’d turn off my phone so I can save the little power it had left, to call her when everything settled. She did not reply so I assumed she was asleep and turned off the phone.

People were no longer spilling out of the theater. It was now time to attempt to make some sense of the chaos.  I live in a city that has police officers, fire fighters, etc. that are just 100% there to serve and protect us. I’m sure all cities do, but to see it in action is amazing. Everywhere you looked you really only saw 2 different types of faces on people. It was either look of shock which appears as a face with no emotion. I know that is the face I had. There is one person in my group who I will keep nameless for his privacy, who face I will never forget. He was walking across the parking lot, surveying all around, seeing everything, and just looked to be just shocked. It broke my heart to see his face like that.

The other face was a face of horror. This consisted of uncontrollable crying. It was these faces that broke my heart the most. Most of these faces, we kids. Teenagers who had went out for an awesome night at the movies.  There were kids crying in their parent’s arms, and parents crying in their kid’s arms. I tell you, all images and descriptions, don’t even begin to scratch the surface as to how much more I saw and witnessed.

The pastors that were in our group said that we need to start praying. So we immediately began to pray in a small circle. As we prayed, two young women came up to us, just crying uncontrollably. We immediately opened our circle and put them in the middle and we all laid hands on them.  They began to tell us of the horror they had just incurred. Out of respect for their privacy, I will not divulge what they shared.

After what seemed like hours, things began to stabilize. The police was starting to separate us all by theaters, 8 & 9. They interviewed everyone, got our info, etc. At approx 4 am, some 3 ½ hours after we all ran out of the theater, we were “released”. We were told to go a bus depot lot across the street to get picked up. We knew we wouldn’t be allowed to take our own cars because they were now apart of a crime scene. We made our way over there and I noticed that there was some news crews setting up over there, reporting on the event. We get over there and run into some rude reporters who just wanted to ‘milk us’ for information. We politely told them no comment, etc. But they kept persisting. As we got our spot where we were going to wait for our rides, I was watching the reporters just go after any other person who came across the street. I want to make a quick mention, that there was ONE reporter that I saw that seemed to be the only one who seemed to be “compassionate”, and that was Kevin Torres of 9News. He would approach someone, get an answer, and walk away. He clearly showed the most class of all I saw. Not that the others were so bad, but he was remarkable. 

So as we were standing there, waiting for our rides, someone says to me, “Hey Bo, you better call your wife, she’s posting on facebook looking for you”. I immediately turn my phone back on and dial her number.  Ring, ring, ring, ring, voicemail.  I dial again, same result. Then texts begin to flood into my phone. I got one from Monique that made me lose it. I HAVE to talk to her, take her fears and pain away. So I borrow a buddy’s phone and dial her number. Maybe something is up with the sprint network and we can’t connect. So I dial her number again on a different phone and it begins to ring. I kept mumbling “answer it, answer it, answer it…”. I look at my phone in my other hand and it has an alert “plug your phone into a charger, it has less than 5% power”…and that alert is removed by an incoming call from my brother in law. I immediately answer it and say “hello”, and then I heard the sweetest, most comforting voice in my life, my wife’s. Tears didn’t flow from my eyes, they gushed. They overflowed.  What we exchanged will stay between us. After I finished the call, I sat down on a bench. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I sat down. I’d been standing for soo long, with tense body, and now I was finally resting.

So after the phone call is concluded, a short time later, the first round of rides arrived. I see this white little car with Grace FM cross on his back window. It was such a comfort to see this guy. I describe the comfort as to that it was good to see someone from “outside” this situation coming to our rescue. But it wasn’t just “someone”, it was a very good brother in Christ.

I finally got home at about 445 in the morning. I called and talked to my wife for quite some time. I shared my initial pain with her. I was still very, very raw. I didn’t know what to do next. I didn’t know what to feel next. I didn’t know what feeling was right. I then got a text from my brother asking me “hey, what theater did you see Batman at?”. I realized that America was waking up to this tragedy and here I was, wanting to go to sleep from this tragedy.

Since that horrible morning, it’s been very, very difficult. I’ve gone through all of the emotions, anger, sadness, shock, bitterness, pain, frustration, etc. I’ve had sleepless nights. I’ve drove myself crazy with all the why’s.  Why did this happen to me? Why did I survive and not that 6 year old? Why didn’t I stop and pray at the stairs before I ran out? Why didn’t I move that trash can? Why didn’t I stop to help the employee at the stairs who seemed stuck? Why did I leave the guy I ran behind with a gun shot wound? Why didn’t  I call my brother in law and have him wake up my wife and spare her the anguish of not knowing where her husband was? Why does all these GREAT people have to witness this tragedy with me? Why did God make me go through this?

I know, without a doubt, God wants me to use this for His good. He wants me to use this for His glory. I know it will come clearer as time goes by.

In the days since, I’ve realized just how incredibly blessed I am. My church is an amazing church.  I don’t know how to properly describe how blessed I am. ALL of the Pastors have prayed over me and with me. Brothers and sisters in Christ have prayed over and with me. My family may be in California and New Orleans, but I do NOT feel alone.

I cherish my family. My wife Monique is my best friend. She is my everything. I’m sorry for turning off my phone. I’m sorry you had to go through the worse 45 minutes of your life. I love my 3 kids. I want to be your Dad on this earth until you grow old. I want to be the Dad you deserve. I want to be the Godly father and husband you deserve.

I love my brother. You are my big brother, my only brother. I love my CA family. I’m not the same without you as my family. I love my church family. I love the onslaught of support, prayers, and time you’ve given me. I’ve received countless emails, text, facebook messages, etc from all walks of life in my life, and I am eternally grateful for that support.

I am by no means healed, but the healing in me has begun. It’s thru His love from my God that I am here today to tell my story. I still am having a very, very difficult time with all of this and all that’s happened.  I have no idea when I will ever began to be getting back to a “normalcy”, but I know without a doubt, that My God is with me. A friend told me, “God is pruning you, shaping you even more through this” and that’s exactly how I feel. I was on that theater for His purpose. I survived for His purpose. I heard someone pray yesterday “Thank you Father for having Godly men in that theater”, and that’s how I feel. I was placed with these men & women for a reason.

I know healing will only come through Christ. I implore you that if you are reading this and have not accepted Jesus as your Lord and saviour, do so. He is the almighty comforter. He is the almighty healer.

Before I close, I want to extend some very personal thanks to some people.

Thank you my almighty God for your protection over me. Thank you for using me to spread your word. You are such a wonderful Father.

Thank you to my beautiful wife for being my best supporter. Thank you for crying with me. Thank you for holding me up from all the way in California. I love you with my entire soul.

Thanks to the pastoral staff at my church Calvary Chapel. From Pastor Ed, Pastor Ian,Pastor Joel Hirsch, Pastor Joel Wheelersburg, and Pastor Jason Austin. Also thanks to Pastor Jeremiah Wheelersburg. I am forever grateful for your service and example to me and to our body at the church.

Thanks to you Pastor Ian for being such a great counselor to me. Thank you for comforting me when you needed to be comforted too. Forever blessed by you.

Thanks to all of you who sent me any type of message, text, comment, etc. You will never know how much it meant to me.

Thanks to my brother in law Robert. Thank you for being there for my wife in the early morning hours when she was hurting and worried. I can never repay you for that and I am forever grateful.

Thanks to my friends Kurt, Peter, and Henry for taking me out and keeping me occupied.

Thanks to Tony for going with me back to the theater to retrieve my car.

Thanks to all the first responders to the theater. You protected us and served us without hesitation. We as a city will never repay you what you are worth.

I decided Saturday night during worship, that I will not let the enemy defeat me and my faith. I will not let this be wasted. I will fall, I will fail, and I will still suffer, but I will RISE. I will Rise and show that He is King above all names.

Be blessed. Please keep an eye on this blog. I will share more thoughts as I journey through this tragedy.  I continue to be blessed through this whole process.

The one emotion I've had the whole time? It's LOVE. 

-Bo

Pray for my city.