Obama Meets with Victims, Families in Aurora, Colorado
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SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages(AURORA, Colo.) — As the nation tries to piece together what drove the largest mass shooting in U.S. history, President Obama traveled to the town of Aurora, Colo., on Sunday to console the wounded and the loved ones of those lost in Friday’s movie theater tragedy.
After more than two and a half hours of private meetings with the distraught victims, he emerged, red-eyed, to quote scripture.
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,” the president said in a hallway of University of Colorado Hospital, quoting from Revelation 21:4. “Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. For the former things have passed away.”
Obama told assembled press of his mindset when he approaches families who have lost their own.
“I come to them not so much as a president, but as a father and husband,” he said. “And I think that the reason these stories have such an impact on us is because we can all understand what it would be to have somebody we love taken from us. What it would be like.”
Those who met with the president held conversations “filled with memory,” he said.
“It was an opportunity for families to describe how wonderful their brother, or their son or daughter, was and the lives that they have touched,” he said.
Admitting that words were inadequate in these situations, Obama said he tried to assure them that the world had them in their prayers.
Twelve were killed when a gunman unloaded four weapons’ full of ammunition into a packed midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises, the new Batman movie. Police say the suspect, James Holmes, wounded an additional 58 in the chaos, most of them through gunfire. The high number of casualties has made it the largest such incident in the country’s record.
[CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE 12 PEOPLE WHO DIED]
Remarking on national attention to “the perpetrator of this evil act,” the president said he was sure his memory would fade away after feeling the “full impact” of justice.
“What will be remembered, are the good people who were impacted by this tragedy,” Obama said.
Five minutes away from the theater, the university hospital received 23 of those injured in the attack. Ten remained as of the president’s visit, with seven in critical condition.
The president met with some of those remaining patients in the intensive care ward. Two young women in particular stood out in his mind — Allie Young, 19, and best friend Stephanie Davies.
Young, according to the president, was seated very closely to the gunman when he threw canisters of smoke or tear gas into the crowd. Jumping out of her seat to warn the moviegoers, she was instantly shot in the neck, rupturing an artery.
“Apparently as she dropped down to the floor, Stephanie — 21 years old — had the presence to drop down with her, pull her out the aisle, place her fingers over where Allie had been wounded, and apply pressure the entire time while the gunman was still shooting,” Obama said. “Allie told Stephanie she needed to run.”
Davies refused, said the president, and the young woman instead dialed 9-1-1 with her other hand. She remained with her friend until authorities arrived and then helped move her across two parking lots to awaiting ambulances.
“They represent what’s best of us, and they assure us that out of this darkness a brighter day is going to come,” the president said.
Obama spent about three hours total in Colorado after his plane touched down at Buckley Air Force Base, which itself was affected by the tragedy. The base lost two service members: airman Staff Sgt. Jesse Childress, 29, and Petty Officer 3rd Class John Larimer, 27.
The president also met with local officials in Aurora, including Gov. John Hickenlooper, Mayor Steve Hogan, and police chief Daniel Oates, who accompanied him to the hospital.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio