Grand Rapids Knows What Aurora Is Going Through.

Because we all went through it last year about this time. A gunman rips the heart of a city apart by shooting innocent victims and scars a community forever. Rodrick Dantzler was our James Holmes. It was a different set of circumstances with a different outcome in the end, but the head shaking and the pain is still the same. Lives lost and families trying to put their lives back together.

7 dead, including the gunman in a day long terror trip through our little city where "these things don't happen." 12 dead in a movie theatre in an affluent suburb where "these things don't happen". And even though it been over a year, the images and sounds stay with you. The first reports coming in on TV and online. The chase the wrong way down the expressway. The live coverage on the scanner as he gave up and saved the taxpayers alot of time and money.

The reports on TV were the same as we woke up Friday morning. Tear gas, shooting randomly. Boobie trapped apartment. Lives lost and futures changed. Stories of the victims. Senseless. Outrage. The only difference: This gunman is still alive for now. If the State of Colorado doesn't kill him, someone else will. It's a given. Why should he still be here if those 12 people can't be?

It was a different set of circumstances with a different outcome in the end, but the head shaking and the pain is still the same. Lives lost and families trying to put their lives back together. We are with you Aurora. And we wish we didn't know what you are going through. But we do.