DENVER — State Representative Tom Sullivan was more than 2,000 miles away from the parents he saw on his television screen Thursday, but there was a shared sense of grief that began with a high-powered firearm and ended with a jury decision.
Sullivan, who lost his son, Alex, in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, said he watched most of Thursday's court proceedings, recalling similarities when jurors decided the fate of that shooter.Sullivan went on to become a state representative and is running to become a senator. Part of his platform is gun violence prevention.His emotions on Thursday though, as he describes them, are far removed from the political sphere and closer to the stages of grief.
Several parents of Marjory Stoneman students who were killed in the shooting publicly shared their disapproval of the jury's decision."I mean, there is no, you know, there's no coming back from that," he said."There are people who really have made the decision that they don't want to live amongst us. And so, we should say, 'Okay, well then you're not.'"