With the headache and "the bad Friday feeling" yesterday - I still found time in the morning and day to look at the updates of the tragedy that unfolded in an Aurora, CO theater early Friday morning. I brought it up with a few people - and the basics were covered in conversation:
"He was brilliant smart."
"Who takes their 4 year old and 3 month old to a midnight screening?"
"If you're a parent, do you let your kids go to midnight showings anymore?"
"What set him off?"
"Did you hear his apartment is booby trapped?
Somewhere I read that usually, someone like this - like James Holmes, who so recklessly, thoughtlessly, sickly, intentionally went in and took innocent peoples lives - are looking to die. The whole "suicide by cop" scenario. That, or as the police are closing in, they kill themselves. But he didn't. Instead - it sounds like he was calmly disarming himself by his car. He went without incident. And then at some point he told the police that there are explosives in his apartment.
There's an article that says on July 5 he posted on an adult single site - a photo of him with dyed red hair and his message at the top of the profile read: "Will you visit me in prison?" Yikes.
We should assume that with his booby trapping his apartment - he knew he was going to get caught. Or die. He set that up knowing HE was not going back to his apartment and that others - police? family? friends? would go to his apartment to try to learn "Why?". To find "clues" that set him off. But he tells the police there are explosives. Why? Something doesn't add up.
15 days prior he asks - "Will you visit me in prison?" 15 days later - he sets his "plan" in motion. And he will go to prison and maybe die by execution. For what?
So he has the world talking about him. What he's done. Why did he do it? He was so smart. He was nice. One speeding ticket. No Twitter, MySpace, Bookface, LinkedIn... Nothing to outwardly look back and say "Oh, his posts did get kind of different the last 2 months."
So this morning after coffee and running to take care of a co-workers dogs, The Dad and I started discussing it. We talked about the couple who took their small child and 3 month old baby. The Dad says he thought he read somewhere that the suspect started walking up the stairs and "Wouldn't you think someone, at that point would try to attack him from behind?" Which brought me to the story of the girl sitting there - who said she had the gun pointed at her "deer in the headlights" and she dove under the seats and started crawling. She checked a mans' pulse as she was nearing the exit/hallway - but thought the gunman had returned so left the man behind. She is alive.
So we talked heroics. Was there an opportunity for heroics on Friday morning at 12:30am? I don't think so - due to his extremely sophisticated armor and weaponry. And when I say heroics - I mean taking him out, taking him down, disarming him or impaling him. There were heroes - for sure. The young lady above who told others to "Play dead. He won't shoot you if he thinks you're already dead." And as just mentioned, the man who shielded his girlfriend. I'm sure there are more - we just haven't heard their stories yet.
But I told The Dad - in previous versions of Jennifer Seeger's story - that they didn't make her sound very heroic. That she checked the pulse, wanted to get to a young looking girl, but had to flee. To save herself. Leaving the young girl behind. Leaving the man behind.
Therein lies our conversation with our boys. We had two boys at the midnight showing here in The Can. And interestingly - there was an incident at the AMC Theaters that night prior to the showing. There was smoke in the building, they cleared people out - there was misdirection, confusion, they told people to clear out of the parking garage... people lost their places in line, parking spots, had to pay twice for parking, couldn't get refunds when they saw they'd get a bad seat due to following the instructions of the theater staff to evacuate... and I never heard ANY of this from my sons. We heard it from friends whose kids were there, and on the NEWS. Uhhhh boys??? Hellooooo? So it was just the air conditioning unit that overheated - but with Colorado being an hour ahead of us... I mean... who knows? Scary deal. And to top it off - a bunch of 20 year old's "running" the theater that night. My guess is - a lot of changes are coming to the whole midnight premier "event". A manager of some sort on the premises, no costumes, perhaps no more midnight premieres.
The Dad says: "I'll tell my kids - you get out. You save yourself." As a parent I get that. My boys are my life. I've heard more times than I can count that you're not supposed to put your kids first. You put your spouse first and then your kids. That a healthy marriage follows that rule. I had #7 before The Dad and I got married. I was young and had no business having a baby at that time - but having him gave my life a purpose it didn't have before. My life has been about my kids first and foremost and The Dad and I suffered along the way, no question. We did it wrong. Or did we? I don't think so, anymore. We keep "making it". We didn't follow the "rules", but here we are.
So we can tell our boys, give them this "rule" if you will: "Get out. Stay alive. Do whatever you have to do to be safe." But there will always be something that doesn't make that such and easy thing to do. Their friend. Their girlfriend/spouse. Their child. OR... how about fellow mankind. Blue Eyes was at the movie with his girlfriend. Zach Attack with his soon to be fellow Fiji brothers. I say you can't know what goes through someones mind when something like this happens. Will my boys get angry and try to solve "the problem" like Jeremy Glick and his fellow passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93? Will they use their amazing problem solving skills and any training they may have and, like Seeger, shout to others "Play dead!" Will they push someone out of the way of danger, or pick up a stranger laying there as they clear the scene?
Whatever they do with "Get out. Stay alive. Do whatever you have do to do be safe." I know - will be the right thing. We can say what we believe we'd do given the circumstances - but we really don't know what that is until something like this, is happening. Correction - most people really don't know. Those who are never wrong (and some out there really believe this of themselves) do know. But that can be their little secret.
Holmes is supposedly wicked smart and he appears to have snapped. Changed. Was he perhaps always "different" or did drugs or maybe an addiction to pain killers from an old soccer injury "change him"? We may never know. But he's not the last crazy, sick person in the world. We don't know if his upbringing "did" this to him... expectations from elitist parents? We don't know if the video game "Guitar Hero" "did" this to him. We don't know if drugs "did" this to him.
We all may know someone who has changed - and not for the better. We may all just shrug it off and deal with their "new" idiosyncrasies. With laws in place that allow people to buy guns every month, doctors who prescribe narcotics year after year to people who no longer "qualify" for them, people who are more concerned with status and looks, compliments and standing in the community than their kids, etc etc - but mostly our unfailing ability to turn the cheek, "not my problem" attitude that affects so... TOO many. It's not "if" this happens again, it's "when".
When the mothers first response is "They've got the right person." does this make her an accessory? Did she know her son was ill and did nothing to "protect" him from his demons? Was her life more important than the 72 injured or killed on July 20, 2012. I'm having a hard time feeling sorry for her given what I've read. If you're going to have kids - you have a responsibility to uphold. Nurture, love, help, teaching, learning, watching for signs, not ignoring them when the feeling hits you something *might* be off, following your instinct and making sacrifices to our lives if it will help them. Period. Don't have kids if you can't follow through with all of it.
I'm sorry for the lives forever changed by this senseless act. This year has been a year, personally, marked by sadness for my family and I know how the families feel. I spent time being angry at the young man that killed my niece. The young man who had 32 prior arrests for drinking, drugs, wreckless driving - yet was drunk, behind the wheel and driving wrecklessly the night he drove head on into my innocent, unsuspecting, 20 year old niece. He died, he's out of the picture - but the judges that kept letting him go? Why do they get off the hook? And the family that kept letting him go about his wreckless behavior? They lost their son, but they should be held accountable as well. Why? He was 24 - but his problems started when he was 16. While "The Batman" suspect has no priors, no OBVIOUS signs or widely noted oddities - his mother knew they had the right person before hearing all of the details. So someone knew. A parent knew. And until we hear different, it appears she did nothing to help her child. So that also makes me feel sorry for a brilliant mind, now lost.
"Get out. Stay alive.
Do whatever you have to do to be safe." In addition to "Be smart. Make good choices. Call us if you need help. How are things? Let us know when you get there. How much do you need?" And so on...
"The Batman" suspect has given us all an open forum. Be it about gun laws, movie premiere guidelines, mental illness, life saving strategies, how to cope with death, post traumatic stress... and communication. Help. Love. Taking care of our own.
What is your forum? Who is your audience? What can you change? Who can we help? How can we help?
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