Latest News

Six months have passed since an armor-clad gunman opened fire inside Theater 9 of a multiplex here in Denver's eastern suburbs, killing 12 people and wounding at least 58 more. On Thursday, the newly remodeled and renamed Century Aurora cinema opened for the first time since the shooting.

Hundreds came. There were police officers who helped ferry the wounded and dead to hospitals. There were survivors who dropped to the floor or fled the firecracker pops of semiautomatic gunfire, and friends and family members of the moviegoers who did not escape.

"I wanted to come back," said Cheyenne Avery, 16, a close friend of 18-year-old A. J. Boik, a high school catcher and aspiring art teacher who was killed during that July 20 midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises." "I think about him all the time. I want to celebrate his life."

The mayor and governor made speeches. Religious leaders mused about suffering and asked for God's guidance. The theater handed out free popcorn and Twizzlers, and offered a free screening of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" for anyone who wanted to stay past the brief memorial.

People said it was surreal to return to a place that had been a stage for such carnage. They passed through a doorway where they had run frantically into the night. They again smelled popcorn in the air, instead of gunpowder and tear gas.

For many, attending the ceremonial reopening was as much about defiance as memory or grief.

"I cannot allow the shooter in any way, shape or form to win," the mayor of Aurora, Steve Hogan, told the families. "We will not let this tragedy define us."

Put another way: "You're not going to heal unless you confront the thing that you fear," said Kelly Bowen, who had been sitting in the fourth row of the stadium-style seats when the gunman slipped in through an emergency exit door, lobbed a tear gas canister and started shooting.

But the road to reopening has been painful and divisive. Although a solid majority of Aurora residents said they wanted their theater back, some families touched by the massacre thought it was too soon, or simply insensitive, to once again screen shoot-'em-up blockbusters and sell overpriced snacks in a building where their loved ones had been killed.

"They just carpeted over a crime scene," said Caren Teves, who lost her son, Alex, an incandescent 24-year-old who studied counseling. "It's just repulsive. You don't want to go near it. You don't want to be associated with it. You can't get far enough away from it."

Although the chief executive of the theater's owner, Cinemark, flew to Aurora immediately after the shooting, Ms. Teves and other family members said they felt slighted by the company. She said Cinemark never sent a condolence card or any other communication until it sent out the invitations to Thursday's night of remembrance.

Several victims' families and survivors have filed lawsuits against Cinemark, accusing it of lax security. Some have said they wanted to see the theater torn down, or converted to a memorial.

"I know a lot of people won't feel the way that I did, but the ghosts of their children won't be in that theater," said Lonnie Phillips, the stepfather of a budding sports reporter named Jessica Ghawi who was killed. "I'll never go into any movie theater for the rest of my life."

On Thursday, even employees said it was hard to recognize the Century theater.

The green carpets are new, the paint fresh. The blood and shell casings are long gone. Theater 9 is now Auditorium I, an "Extreme Digital" theater with new seats and a big new screen, to replace the one torn down by police officers who were checking for booby traps or other dangers. There is no plaque or rock to commemorate what happened there, no list of names or wall of photos.

But Dylan Boxer, 21, who escaped Theater 9, said the shooting and its setting were indelibly linked. He had already returned once, during a walk-through on Tuesday for people directly affected, and he came again to look for familiar faces from that night, and to show some solidarity with the families. But he would find somewhere else to go to the movies.

"It's still stained," he said.