Visiting the Aurora Memorial

It's been a week since the Aurora Movie Theater Shooting here in Colorado - Cheryl & I decided to visit the makeshift Memorial that was set up at the Movie Theater location to pay our respects and say a little prayer for the victims.

The first thing we saw when we arrived at the Century16 Movie Theater was lots of yellow crime scene tape.

Most of the yellow tape surrounded the movie theater and the parking lot.

Across the street were all the News stations - CNN - Fox - Channel 7, 4 and 9 as well as all the local stations.

Most of the newscasters were across the street from the memorial and did their interviews and broadcasting from this location.

This is the view from the News area of the memorial that was set up for the victims that lost their lives as well as those injured.

As you can see, behind the crosses that were set up - some of the photographers and newscasters made their way down to the memorial to interview some that were visiting the site.

Here a news photographer is filming a lady that had just laid flowers onto the site of one of the victims.

Many parents had brought their children like these 2 who brought stuffed animals to place on the makeshift graves of one of the victims (note the newcaster and cameraman by the road pointing to the kids.

This memorial is set up for Victoria, the little 6yr old girl that lost her life in the shooting.  As you can see a little boy lays a little stuffed dog on her memorial.

This banner was created and set up by children from a nearby school - with lots of heartfelt thoughts that were written on it.

There were mountains of flowers, balloons and candles everywhere on this site

There were 12 crosses set up for the 12 victims that lost their lives in the shooting that terrible day.

Each cross had the name and story of each victim and who they left behind.

This one was for a your girl named Micaya. Her family and friends placed a few of her personal belongings on the cross and wrote sentiments on the cross itself.

The victims ranged in age from 6yr old to 51 yr old.

Victoria, the youngest of the slain victims, had the highest mountain of gifts laid upon her memorial.  She captured the heart of many and broke the heart of all.

This big white board with hanging markers was loaded with many messages - and many more were written while we were there.

There were many signs that people had made to voice their feelings - like this one.

The Memorial site was a difficult visit for us - we both cried and were deeply affected by the sadness and somberness of the site and the people who also came to give their respect.