Haunted by mass violence, Colorado confronts painful history

DENVER (AP) — Dawn Reinfeld moved to Colorado 30 years ago to attend college in the bucolic town of Boulder. Enchanted by the state's wide-open spaces, she stayed.

But, in the ensuing decades, dark events have clouded her view of her adopted home. The 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. The 2012 massacre at the Aurora movie theater. On Wednesday, Reinfeld was reeling from the latest mass shooting even closer to home, after authorities say a 21-year-old gunned down shoppers at a local grocery store.

“I could see at some point leaving because of all this,” said Reinfeld, a gun control activist. “It's an exhausting way to live.”

Colorado has long been defined by its jagged mountains and an outdoor lifestyle that lure transplants from around the country. But it's also been haunted by shootings that have helped define the nation's decades-long struggle with mass violence. The day after the latest massacre, many in the state were wrestling with that history — wondering why the place they live seems to have become a magnet for such attacks. Why here — again?

“People now say, ‘gee, what is it about Colorado?’” said Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was killed at Columbine High School in 1999.

Mauser, now a gun control advocate, was fielding phone calls in the wake of the new attack — among them was a panicked call from a friend whose daughter was shopping in the supermarket and just escaped the shooting. Again, the violence felt so close.

“It just effects so many people. It's become pervasive,” he said.

Colorado isn't the state with the most mass shootings — it ranks eighth in the nation, in the same tier as far larger states like California and Florida, according to Jillian Peterson, a criminology professor at Hamline University in Minnesota.

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