Obama to Visit With Shooting Victims and Families in Colorado
President Obama is preparing to visit Aurora, Colo., on Sunday to visit with families of the victims of Friday’s mass shooting at a movie theater in the Denver suburb that killed a dozen people, the White House announced.
Obama would fly West a day before a previously scheduled three-day campaign swing, which will take him to Reno, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Seattle and New Orleans. The president plans to continue on that trip after he attends the Aurora service.
His visit to Aurora would come two days after the largest mass shooting in American history. Police said James Holmes, 24, entered a midnight premier of the new Batman movie and opened fire on the audience, leaving 58 wounded.
Authorities arrested Holmes in the parking lot, and they are searching for clues as to a motive. They said they have found no evidence of links to organized terrorist groups.
Obama expressed condolences during remarks Friday in Fort Myers, Fla., shortly after he learned about the shooting.
“We may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this,” Obama said at the Harborside Events Center, where he cut short a campaign event to speak instead on the shooting. “Such violence, such evil is senseless. It’s beyond reason. But while we will never know fully what causes somebody to take the life of another, we do know what makes life worth living. The people we lost in Aurora loved, and they were loved.”