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Staff Sgt. Jesse Childress, an Air Force reservist, was the kind of guy who would do anything for anybody.
“My brother’s wheelchair broke,” said one long-time neighbor in Lake Los Angeles, Calif., where Childress grew up. “He (Jesse) fixed it and didn’t charge him a dime.”
Childress was one of 12 people killed in Friday morning’s shooting rampage at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater.
He was at the midnight showing with fellow reservist Munirih Gravelly when James Holmes allegedly set off a can of tear gas before opening fire.
"As soon as that little gas can exploded, I said, 'This is wrong,'” Gravelly said. “At first, when I thought it was a prop, the part of the movie that it came in on, I thought, ‘That doesn’t make much sense.'”
Gravelly said she dove for the floor when she heard gunfire.
"I felt something hit my hand really hard,” she said. “It hurt, but I figured I could worry about that later. So I just kept my face down.”
She never saw the gunman, but Gravelly, who was wounded by buckshot, vividly recalls reaching for her friend and movie-going companion, Childress.
Read the original report on NBCSanDiego.com
"He wasn't moving. He was really still,” she recalled. “I’ve never seen anybody so still. We shook him and called his name and he didn't respond."
Gravelly said she feels tormented over how Childress died.
"I feel really sorry that he's gone,” she said. “None of us noticed until the lights, until it was over, that he was gone. None of us were there to hold his hand, look him in the eye while he passed."
She looks back in disbelief at how it started so innocently: a long-awaited midnight screening with friends.
"We were really happy, the theater was full,” she said. “Everyone started to cheer when the movie started.”
Gravelly said the military trains you how not to make a bad situation worse.
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"Maybe I was a coward for just staying there,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “Because I lost a friend, you always wish there's something you could do."
Gravelly openly wept when she talked about how close she came to never seeing her daughter again.
“She just turned six in July,” said Gravelly of her daughter. “Who’s ever going to be able to explain why I'm gone?”
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Leave a Comment:
Sorry that your friend died so did mine move on i did not get a news interview..
Just sayin..
My thoughts and prayers with all the victims and the families.
wow you are a jerk. so what if you didn't get an interview, these people have a right to speak and I wish them all of the support they need to get over their loss, and for you as well. Don't be such an idiot posting crap like this to people in mourning.
Yep, surely enough this guy is a jerk without respect to those who serve, the dead, and those who mourn. Shame on you.
Sounds like dmatthews3 is bent out of shape because the spotlight isn't on him. Only a self-centered dumb aS$ would make such a ridiculous comment...Just saying.
Being a former member of this reserve unit and knowing the bond that you have with fellow military members is like nothing else out there except for family, I am right there with her. No one wants this kind of attention and to blame her for some reason for being in the media is just asinine. I can only hope that she gets through her survivor guilt and lives her life to the fullest in honor of Jesse. He would have wanted no less.
reading some of the comments people post online about different news stories...dmatthews3 your included...i really hope people are just writing these things to get a rise out of people, to have an opportunity to say mean, nasty things with no filter...i really hope that is why people like you and other people who write nasty, un-empathetic comments do it..not because you really believe the things you say....my heart bleeds for humanity, both what we have done to each other in the past, what we do today, and what I am sure will be done in the future...
God did not cause this tragedy! A very intelligent young man, with malice and forethought caused it. His intelligence will prevent an insanity plea from absolving his responsibility. Since President Reagan was shot, in 1981, insanity pleas have been mostly unsuccessful anyway.
My sympathy goes to the victims and their families but nobody has been told how he went into the theater to begin with. According to his apartment this guy knew exactly what he was doing. They say that there wasn´t any evidence of him being a member of any terrorist group. Why is it in this country if they are linked to the Communist Party they aren´t linked to a terrorist group? I mean look at what the Communists agenda for America is then add everything together and you have a very powerful terrorist organization at work here and their terrorist acts never get traced back to them especially the pedophilia and homosexual agenda´s but the U.S helped the Jews-Communists defeat Hitler in WWII and look at what has happened to the U.S since they have come here and taken over our politics.