On Friday, November 27th, a shooting occurred at the Planned Parenthood located off Centennial, by King Soopers, from about 11:40pm till 5:00pm when the shooter was detained according to a press conference. Over the course of several hours, suspect Robert Lewis Dear, detained inside the Planned Parenthood engaged in open fire with the police. All surrounding buildings at the time had been put into lockdown until the law enforcement officers could release the people inside. During the shooting, nine people were injured and UCCS police officer Garrett Swasey, 44, Jennifer Markovsky, 36, and Ke’Arre Stewart, 29, were unfortunately killed. Law enforcement was then able to work through and process the crime scene, though because of its size, it will take days to get all the way through.

I spoke to Officer Adam Romine, who is the school resource officer at Coronado High School, about the shooting and asked him to try and help me piece together more of that Friday afternoon. He told me that not only was this one of the more scary experiences he has had as a police officer, but that it was eye opening for the public and for him as well. About halfway through the interview, one of my questions for him was, “What would be your advice for people who are scared or worried about getting caught in a situation like that shooting?” His response was pretty clear, informing me that the best thing for civilians to do is to get out of the way to safety, in whatever way that they can. One thing that Officer Romine was adamant about was, “Our job is to be the wall between you guys and the bad guy.” Before the interview was over I asked a harder question, “Why do you think this shooting got more attention and more people knew about it then the shooting that occurred on Halloween in Colorado Springs?” His answer was, that he honestly didn’t know, but he thought that the sheer number of people involved, and the large amount of time the standoff took made it gain more attention on all ends.

In the wake of the shooting, community members have come together in support of the victims and their families. A vigil was held for Officer Garrett Swasey at UCCS, and a large amount of people attended, leaving flowers and other mementos to honor the officer who gave his life. The shooting as a whole was an eye opener for many Colorado Springs citizens, who would have never imagined that something so brutal would happen in this town. This shooting the second in Colorado Springs in 2015, is just one of the many mass shootings around the country, where the number has hit several hundred in this year alone. Like Colorado Springs other cities, have worked together as well, to support victims of these crimes and come together as a community. Overall, these shootings have happened in many people’s “backyards” and have caused them to think not only about their safety, but what can be done to prevent these incidents from happening again.