Aurora shootings should cause panic
The park across from Aurora Central High School should be a safe place for students to gather, but after gun violence shattered the lives of six teens on Monday, every student in the Denver metro area, and their parents, should be feeling on edge. It’s time to panic.
Just because the shooting didn’t happen in Aurora Central High School, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a school shooting. Thankfully, police are reporting that everyone will survive, but bullets inflict life-long damage on the human body and some may never fully recover.
The news of a second school shooting came Friday as Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson led a march against violence in Aurora. Three students were shot outside of Hinkley High School, just a few miles away from Central. We pray those students also survive.
These students have a long road of recovery, and we’re not just talking about those who were shot or who heard the dozens of gunshots that rang out Monday and Friday afternoons. Gun violence is felt like a shudder through a state that has suffered an extraordinary increase in homicides and especially an increase in violent deaths among teens. Our children should not be unsafe in and around their schools, and yet they are.
We must come together as a community to stop this senseless violence. COVID-19 isn’t killing our kids. Gun violence is.
Stray bullets don’t stop flying once they miss their intended target, and as the violence spills into public parks and streets, it’s only a matter of time before the general public wakes up to the threat posed by teen gun violence.
Aurora is not alone in this fight, and the violence doesn’t always come from a gun. Text messages from a teen arrested on charges of killing five people, including a baby and a toddler in an act of arson at a home in Green Valley Ranch, illuminate how drug dealing and low-level criminal offenses can lead to an act of pure evil upon an innocent family sleeping in their home.
Wilson is fighting many battles in her community at one time, and it cannot be easy.
If Aurora Police are to be successful, they must regain trust with a community that has finally found a voice to talk about years of police brutality suffered in a department that has a documented history of violence against the African American and Latino/a community. The fact that school resource officers possibly saved lives by rendering first aid on the scene before ambulances arrived could be a starting message that police are there to help, not hurt students.
Wilson also must battle for an internally divided police force to come together and adopt reforms being pressed upon them by a consent decree with the Colorado Attorney General’s office. Morale must be low at a time when we need police to work harder than ever at combating violent crime.
And, sadly, Wilson is fighting against indifference. We hope these shootings are a wake-up call to elected officials like Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
Something is broken. Our city, county, and state officials should spare no expense in trying to prevent our kids from killing or being killed.
The time for action was years ago when youth gun violence started rising – officials have been talking a good game – but now is the time to reorganize budgets, reprioritize community outreach efforts, and give our children hope instead of fear and trauma.