'Enough': Aurora Police Chief After El Paso, Dayton Shootings

AURORA, IL — Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman had one short comment after the shootings that claimed 31 lives in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, Saturday and Sunday: "Enough." Ziman, like so many in Aurora, had her world turned upside down when a gunman opened fire at Henry Pratt Manufacturing on Feb. 15, which marked the sixth deadly mass shooting of 2019.

El Paso was number 16, and just hours later, Dayton was number 17, according to ABC.

In the aftermath of Aurora's Henry Pratt shooting, which claimed five lives, Ziman said, "Our city will never be whole again. We've lost human beings, and the void they leave can never be filled." She also vowed that after informing the media of the Aurora gunman's identity, she would never speak his name again.

Pritzker Leaves Out Aurora Shooting: 'It Hasn't Happened Here'

Since then, Ziman has publicly shared her outrage over each subsequent mass shooting, including the massacre that killed 13 people in Virginia Beach, Virginia, May 31. Ziman wrote, "Virginia Beach, we know the pain you’re feeling right now because the wounds are still fresh from our mass shooting."

This was clear in the reactions that Aurora residents had on social media following the El Paso and Dayton shootings. Many shared articles celebrating Aurora native Greg Zanis, who drove thousands of miles to place his famous wooden crosses at the sites of each shooting.

This is what Zanis has done following every mass shooting since Columbine in 1999. His white wooden crosses have become a familiar sight as mass shootings become a more and more familiar occurrence.

Aurora was changed by its mass shooting, as the country is changed by each mass shooting that takes place. Ziman's words after the Virginia Beach shooting seemed to resonate with people in Aurora and across the nation when she wrote, "Tell me this is not our new normal."