March 24, 2021 — City Council Special Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:34] [Music]

[4:41] let me see who we're missing here i know that nearby will be late his junior year he is having some difficulty i'm coming here right now okay great we will give her a minute

[5:00] brenda remember to uh captions [Music] [Music]

[6:10] um staff are we ready chris is channeling good to go uh i will look to emily uh to confirm [Music] channel 8 is good to go very good well with that i will go ahead and kick off this meeting welcome everyone to the special meeting of the boulder city council march 24th 2021 this is a gathering because of the unprecedented uh tragic events which have occurred in our community on monday march 22nd we are gathering for the purposes of healing supporting each other hearing from our community about what is needed as we take the next steps to recover from this

[7:00] we will start with a bit of housekeeping so that as many people as possible can understand what we're saying so i'll turn to brenda rittenhauer to walk us through instructions for language interpretation brenda thank you sam my name is brenda rittner i'm with our communication and engagement team um and we are happy to be supported tonight by um interpreters for both spanish and bosnian uh elena do we have interpreters for concurrent um interpretation at this point yes uh it looks like we already have you sorry looks like we already have you in a channel elena can you come to english i'm not in a channel i'm not no

[8:01] no i've got you ready in spanish yes there's no channel yet yep so we have not yet um activated our interpretation function okay we're giving instructions now and we'll have our interpreters provide concurrent reputation after i share instructions in english so let me share my slide now and we will go ahead and move into that portion so we have we will have at the bottom of your screen this globe icon just a few moments elena in spanish

[9:06] [Music] once you see the globe icon at the bottom of your screen you will be able to click it and choose the language in which you would like to experience the meeting thank you we ask that everyone choose a language even if your choice is english that way should there need to be interpretation from another language to english you will be able to hear that as

[10:01] well elena interpretation so everyone should be able to choose your language now we also have interpretation into asl american sign language you'll see right now um rey who is in a black shirt and if you would like to make sure he stays on your screen no matter who is speaking you can use you can go to his little box on your screen and click

[11:00] the three buttons on his bot and pin him you'll choose the function called pin and that will keep rey on your screen no matter who else may be speaking thank you sam i think we are ready to begin thank you so much brenda and i'll turn to alicia the city clerk and alicia could you please call the roll yes sir good evening everyone councilmember rocket listen friend here joseph nego is absent sweat mayor we have a quorum thank you very much as i think you are all aware um we have had a horrific tragedy strike boulder we've lost 10

[12:02] members of our community and we are here tonight to discuss that to heal to begin the process of figuring out our next steps together to hear from the community what you think our next steps need to be i want to take just a moment and acknowledge the the grief that the families of the victims must be feeling i also want to thank the first responders who responded monday both from older police one of whose member paid the ultimate price for their response officer eric talley and thank fire and thank all the surrounding communities who sent first responders to this incident they saved lives and they helped apprehend the suspect which is of course critical to our sense of closure and justice i also want to thank the rest of our staff

[13:00] the the first responders are seen and visible the rest of our city staff has been working incredibly hard both to set up for this meeting to get all the folks who are here assembled and briefed and ready to to do their part and many other things such as assembling the links to be able to donate to support the victims families as well as links to mental health services that we'll discuss more later so thank you to our staff for your extremely dedicated service to all of us um with that um tonight we have just the one subject and we're going to treat it as a matters item so we have invited speakers to speak to us um if all goes well we will also have a staff representative at the vigil there's a vigil that will be starting at seven o'clock on the boulder courthouse lawn if things go well we will also hear from a few people who are at that vigil but

[14:00] at the very least our staff member chris messchuck the acting city manager will deliver remarks from the city to that vigil with that i am going to turn to the invocation we are going to set the tone tonight of healing remembrance and community and we're going to do that with a joint invocation from mary kate rourgeois and rabbi fred green so if we could start that recording please mayor pro-tem weaver city council members thank you for the opportunity to be with you today and to offer this invocation on the event of terrible violence in the boulder community a few days ago i have invite invited my friend and colleague rabbi fred greene of

[15:01] congregation hashem to join me because in times of trial we are better with the support of friends i encourage all who listen tonight to seek company and counsel if you find yourself struggling to endure you are not alone this invocation uses a prayer authored by rabbi edith mentioner modified for this occasion we apologize in advance for names not pronounced correctly we stand in grief with the devastated families in our community we weep over the incomprehensible loss of life we cry out with shock confusion and pain we mourn together over this senseless

[16:01] act of violence and destruction we remember persons fathers and mothers sons and daughters friends and neighbors husbands and wives three of them the age of us a rabbi and a priest four older three younger each one known best to those in their near orbits each one with mysteries not yet revealed let us now hear their names and the smallest portion of their lives 49 years old shop manager and organic bold right newly engaged full of love and light suzanne fountain 59 years old

[17:01] a gardener who shared abundance in leaves of lettuce an actress a medicare genius who will not reach the age to apply for the same terry lyker 51 years old a 30-year king supers employee a kind and fierce bagger of groceries special olympian and olympic class friend kevin mahoney 61 years old a retired chief operating officer of hospitality and hotels and almost grandfather who will not welcome this grandchild lynn murray 62 photo editor and cosmopolitan landed in boulder instacart driver mother artist designer

[18:03] ricky olds 25 front end manager oldest sister hiker and camper her love of independence did not keep her free from being killed in her place of work denny stone 20 an employee dreamer and outdoorsman an aspiring pilot whose high school graduation was just blocks away and two years ago 23 years old a son of immigrants already once a refugee of violence in a war zone fixer of coffee machines not yet old enough to rent a car eric talley 51 an officer among our heroes in the

[19:00] boulder police department the boulder county sheriff's department and the cu police department beloved and loving father a woodworker and the first one whose name we knew jodie waters 65 boutique owner and every shopper's friend on the pearl street mall a mother and grandmother last in the alphabet and the oldest among them still too young for their beloved families and friends we grieve be with us god in this time of sorrow and fear help us god to offer comfort to those whose hearts are shattered

[20:01] rekindle hope and trust and courage with us help us to sustain our belief in the promise that even in the most burdensome of times even when we feel most discouraged love is never extinguished and light and spirit will prevail help us to rededicate ourselves to building a world that is safer for our children help us to build a world that is safer for all people during these difficult days and nights may we find comfort and peace and hope and light to bear the burdens of broken hearts and a broken world o [Music]

[21:01] they'll says joshua tavel may the one who causes peace to reign in the high heavens and the person near us let peace descend upon us amen well thank you to gracias thank you to reverend so i think we i'm hearing an interpretation let me double check mine should be off so brenda can we make sure that we've got the interpretation on the channel marina sorry you're in the english channel um so let's meet you for now and you and i will keep working on it

[22:00] very good one more time thank you reverend roger and rabbi green for supplying that um wonderful invocation to start this terrible meeting i want to pass along i received a call today from u.s president joe biden and he expressed his deepest sympathies to all of boulder specifically as well to the victims families and also called out officer tally by name for his heroic efforts and sacrifice that he made there's more to the conversation that i had with the president and i will reference that when we speak at the end of the meeting tonight but i do want everyone in boulder to know that we have a leader of our country who feels the pain that bolderites have experienced he sympathizes with our loss and he intends to work with us to try and bring change to the laws that govern

[23:03] the weapons that killed the people in our community with that i'm going to turn over to the governor of the state of colorado jared polis to hear a few words thank you mayor weaver it was you know when you mentioned at the start of the meeting this is the agenda um of course it's all consuming what else can can possibly be thought of or talked about as you know not only do i have the great honor to be governor of the state of colorado but i'm a boulder native a boulder resident and you know what many of us knew the victims firsthand new people who knew them boulder at the end of the day is a small tight-knit community i have several friends who lost somebody that they cared about that they knew well um at the king super's killing but whether you knew some of the someone who personally or not who perished uh this was a blow to the entire

[24:01] community it really when we see these tragedies happen in different parts of our country everyone likes to think that wouldn't happen here and it happened here and it happened at a place that many of us have been i've shopped there you've shopped there stopped there when i'm in south boulder to pick up food something that we can all identify with it could be any grocery store could be anywhere in our state anywhere in our country these were 10 men and women just going about their day like you and me some of them working some of them shopping making a quick drip trip to grab dinner and on monday afternoon evil manifested and cut their lives short there's there's gonna be a lot of talk in the days and weeks ahead what could have possibly been the motive or the motivation or why but there is no motive or explanation that can justify the action or that can relieve

[25:01] the pain of those left behind and our entire community you know grocery stores are are really a hub of our community and we have that expectation of familiarity of safety and that's why for many of us this attack feels so personal that could be any of us at any store at any time and i want you to know this tragedy is not just touch boulder in our state but i've seen such an outpouring of love and support from people across the country and across the world for boulder and our residents in our time of need earlier today i stopped by king super table mesa and saw the ad hoc memorial and paid my respects laying down a bouquet of flowers along with hundreds if not thousands of other flowers and i was very heartened to see so many of our fellow boulder rights doing the same many brought flowers made

[26:00] signs laid down special tokens some were friends of people that were lost and in many ways just two days after the attack it still doesn't feel fully real it's still hard to hard to understand that this happened here i want to encourage everyone to give ourselves the space to grieve the space to be angry to be sad to be confused to ask why questions that can't be answered but must be asked and nothing about what happened monday is normal and we must do everything that we can to keep ourselves and one another from becoming desensitized to this pain even if that seems like the easier choice and support it's important to own this pain and remember what happened we are familiar with tragedies like this in the abstract sense we've heard about them we've read about them but it came to our community

[27:00] and it could come to any community to the ten families survivors the friends who are waking up every day without their mother or father son or daughter sister brother on behalf of the state of colorado express our love and condolences the entire state of colorado is with you and the entire state of colorado stands with boulder as coloradans we remember denny strong nevin stanisek ricky olds jelana bartowiak terry lyker eric talley suzanne fountain kevin mahoney lynn murray and jody waters thank you thank you governor and i will turn next to senate colorado state senate majority

[28:01] leader steve fenberg thank you mayor weaver and uh thank you for for having this conversation um this is something that we have all um seen happen across the country i think it became all too normal right and this is something so many different communities have experienced personally and then over the last year it feels like um as nothing was normal because of this pandemic and our world was turned upside down dozens of different times in different ways this is something we haven't actually seen a whole lot of uh as a country fortunately the thing that makes me so angry is that

[29:02] it feels like as we get back to normal as we contemplate being able to go out to a restaurant or do the normal things that we've always taken for granted unfortunately that coming back to normal includes seeing um headlines of horrific events in the news that's the part that makes me so angry is that back to normal has to include that i think we all um want to get back to a level of normalcy i also think we have an opportunity here to reset and have a difficult conversation of what normal is or what it should be and what is a healthy normal clearly what happened in atlanta and now what has happened in our community is not

[30:01] normal by any stretch of the imagination at least not to to any other country right um so i guess first and foremost obviously my thoughts our thoughts and condolences are with the the victims and with the families and those that all of uh the all of us that have been touched in one way or another by uh them their their their roles in our community the just we've all been touched in one way or another um there's just gonna be a long road ahead of grief for the families it's going to be an impossibly long road we have to be there to show up for them we we absolutely

[31:00] need to at the same time concurrently talk about what can be done to prevent something like this happening again and making sure that something good comes out of this but we need to make sure that first and foremost our our role also is to be neighbors to to continue uh to show love and grace and and and be there for the community and for the individuals that are hurting so much today and into the near future um i'm not gonna i'm not gonna get into a lot of policy discussion i don't think that would necessarily be appropriate but i will say that i am um i've talked to several of you over the last couple of days they're going to be continued conversations about what can happen at a state level um

[32:01] obviously the the court ruling around boulder's uh policy is top of mind um it has to be part of the conversation it can't end there because we know that's woefully inadequate to create a safe community so those are conversations that are happening and more and more so will happen um in the forefront uh as a community and i am welcoming that conversation i am eager to be a part of that conversation in in any and every way that um makes sense or where i can be helpful um uh representative mobile and representative hooton and i just had a town hall with several others joining and we've we had this conversation about what needs to happen what can happen what may happen at the federal level the state level the local level and the answer is that there's obviously not a single solution

[33:00] um but but that can't keep us from seeking solutions and making um taking those steps that will um make our community safer so what i guess i i'm here to say tonight is that um to implore that that our community gets tighter than ever and that our community shows up more than ever and this is a community that does show up um as city council members i think you guys are well aware of that and we need to channel that um as a community towards being there for our loved ones for for our community members so we can get out of this and build something that is stronger more beautiful more resilient more safe than we've ever been but at the same time we all need to

[34:00] think about how we can make sure that this is not a moment that is just another one of these moments in this country we owe it i think to the victims um we owe it to everyone who's touched by it to to not let this just be another moment and not let this be the return to normal um and so at the state level what i can assure council members in the community at large is that we are eager to have those conversations they are going to be difficult they are going to be challenging i can't say uh with any confidence that that i know exactly what is going to happen but we are going to have the conversations everything is going to be on the table and i can assure you that the the the delegation from the city of boulder is going to be in lockstep together to make sure that we do whatever is within our power that is the most effective most meaningful uh change that that we can get done

[35:02] um to make sure that we can prevent the next tragedy from happening including making sure that the city of boulder has uh the right to go above and beyond what state regulations exist or will exist after this session but again i don't think that is the answer there is no answer there is no one solution it has to be a continued conversation that evolves because you never get to a place where you can say great we passed a bill or we passed a policy and now they're um we have solved this problem this is something that we have to work on together over time and um many would say it's too soon to talk about any of that and i get that and i appreciate that and i respect that perspective um personally and i said this on the senate floor yesterday it's it's obviously too late it's not a question about is it too soon it is too

[36:00] late and um we need to do everything we can to make sure that this tragedy doesn't happen again and that our communities including boulder but every other community in colorado is safer because we can't let this become the return to normal so i'll leave it there mayor weaver council members others my door is always open to have these conversations and to strategize and to talk about what comes next um but for now my my hearts are with this community and and i want to thank you for inviting me and having this important conversation thank you so much senator much appreciated um next we will go to um congressman joe negus who is here with us thank you mr mayor and uh good evening to all the council members uh mayor pro tem joseph and to mayor weaver and uh to all the folks who are listening in here

[37:01] in boulder um i wish i was here under better circumstances to to see you all but i'm grateful for the opportunity to come by and say a few words and grateful for you all holding this special meeting to honor the victims that our community lost on monday night i know i don't need to tell each of you how devastating uh the the events of the past few days have been for our community i would simply say to you that as i've received calls from the speaker of the house and countless of my colleagues in the house of representatives on both sides of the aisle republican and democratic members they each one have offered their condolences to the families who lost loved ones on monday and have offered their thoughts and their prayers to our community and i just hope you all know that the rest of the country is thinking of our community and as i've talked to my colleagues i've tried to explain to them those who haven't been to boulder before

[38:01] that it's a small community it's a strong community but it's a small one it's a close-knit community and the loss of life is unimaginable but in particular for a community like ours to lose 10 fellow community members people who were brothers and sisters neighbors friends colleagues family members to see their lives cut short to have such a tragedy unfold here in boulder county and in the city of boulder is it's hard to describe in words i want to say thank you to the city of boulder to the mayor to every one of you to your staff to the boulder city police who are heroes we all of course continue to mourn the service and the sacrifice of of officer tally we remember him and

[39:00] his sacrifice his service will never be forgotten we mourn his passing and i want to say thank you to chief harold for her strength and the way in which she and so many of the officers in the boulder police department have responded to this tragedy both during the harrowing events of monday afternoon and in the days since we are in their dead i also want to say thank you to the district attorney who has done a tremendous job as he works to pursue justice in this case we are lucky to have such an exceptional person leading our district attorney's office here in this community certainly federal resources will be available our office always stands ready and able and willing to help the city of boulder to the extent that you all have needs as we respond to this tragedy i'm grateful

[40:01] that so many in the community have come together and are supporting each other during this difficult time so many mental health professionals here in our community who are helping those survivors i also want to say thank you to our local press again when i talk about boulder county being a small community and the way in which this tragedy is impacting every facet of the city of boulder that includes the press that keeps us accountable and that provides readers and citizens across our region with such incredible reporting and the daily camera mitchell buyers all the folks who uh have been reporting on the terrible events in real time we're grateful to them as we are to the business community and i know john tears on as well from the chamber for their efforts in supporting the businesses in in south boulder i the last time i was here in front of the boulder city council

[41:00] testifying was as a citizen not as a member of congress many of you were on the council at that time my director of community affairs who does a tremendous job in our office was on boulder city council and she authored a measure to ban assault weapons and i testified in support of that measure i'm grateful to her for her leadership at that time i'm grateful to the council for stepping up at that time and i am so frustrated and angry inaction at the federal level has compelled cities like our own to take such steps because federal policy makers have been incapable or unwilling to do what was required of them which was to save lives in communities like ours and to see what unfolded on monday happen here in our community and to see

[42:02] fellow community members lose their lives in another terrible mass shooting it it's again difficult to comprehend and so frustrating because it doesn't have to be this way and i will simply tell you that i've always been a supporter of universal background checks of closing the charleston loophole of of reinstating the federal assault weapons ban but the events of the past few days have compelled me in a way and i know many others in a way that would be difficult for me to describe and i give you my promise that i will not stop as long as i have the privilege of serving this community and representing this community for i will not stop to advocate not stop advocating for those measures that i just mentioned and

[43:00] i intend to come back to this council i hope one day soon with the news that those measures are law in the meantime again i would encourage everyone on the council to the extent that we can be a resource to let us know our door is of course always open you all i think each of you have my cell number and certainly have jill's as well i hope you'll reach out to us in the coming days and weeks as uh as we work to heal our community and uh again as we we work to honor the victims of this terrible tragedy i thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you and would would yield back thank you congressman we look forward to the day that you described as well we would love to to thank you for helping bring us all kinds of gun reform so thank you i'll turn next to colorado state representative edie hooton

[44:00] edie i thought i saw her i still see her she's here muted you should be able to unmute now edie oh there we go okay thank you um so council to the extent that we can be able to oh my goodness let us know where to begin of course so um you all i think each of you have my cell phone hang on a second edie hang on just one second okay i hope you'll reach out to us i can hear i can hear joe speaking in the background community yeah that's recorded so work to honor the victims and i'm not quite sure how to sorry i'm looking for how to turn it off one moment thank you congressman we look forward to thank you david you described as well we would love to thank you for helping bring us okay all

[45:02] kinds of gun reform so thank you um i'll turn next to um colorado state representative edie hooton thank you mayor weaver um and i appreciate everyone on this call i saw her i am i still see her deeply hang on what we have that is unmuted at the moment um [Music] all right so at this point i've unmuted everyone i've muted everyone um so interpreters and um council members and edie um please unmute as you wish thank you brenda we'll try again edie um

[46:02] we'd love to hear from you baby you described as well perhaps it's a problem on my end um but i've got um i can hear sam you know just getting the last yeah mayor weaver edie i wonder if you have playing in your background the live feed of the of the meeting it's on a slight delay very good and in the meantime all right so um um brenda maybe you and i can talk offline about how how to stop this and um and mayor you can go to someone else very good we'll do that so let's very good sorry about the technical difficulties it's the wonder of the zoom age so we'll turn now to um colorado state representative judy

[47:01] ahmadley judy i thank you so much uh for inviting me to come and talk tonight and thank you all for being here and i you know obviously this is a terrible event and it would be nice if we had been able to come together under happier circumstance uh so i don't want to repeat what other people have said as a state legislator i am committed to supporting gun legislation and be that an assault weapons ban at the federal level at the state level or removing the state preemption so that every city town county in colorado can do what they want but i think the gold standard obviously would be to get the federal legislation passed i want to say that we are so lucky here in boulder and on this city council to

[48:02] have an incredible champion for gun rights in council member rachael friend and um she has really been a leader in this topic and i'm going to be colluding and collaborating with her on all the gun measures that we talk about because this has been a real passion area for her and we're so just grateful to have her so the other thing i want to talk about so thank you rachel is the other need that we have which is we are not taking care of people who have serious mental illnesses and while most people with mental illness are not violent and never commit a crime and are way more likely to be the victims of crime we those people are not getting the treatment they need either

[49:01] so we've had a massive failure our state is one of the worst in terms of its commitment to taking care of people who have serious mental illness and we have agreed that it's okay to simply jail people for mental illness because that somehow is easier for us to stomach than actually putting out the resources that we need to take care of people and to treat people in hospitals and as outpatients and with compassion and we have to change that and that's the other thing that i am fully committed to working on and i hope that i will have all of your support and since i have this audience i'm just going to shamelessly pitch this i have been working for about a year now with city and county leaders and professionals in the mental health arena and councilman brockett has joined our meetings we have sheriff pele

[50:00] we have michael doherty and we had john tayer and the boulder chamber and people from mental health colorado and people from mental health partners people from the county and we are gonna put a tax on the ballot for county-wide to support mental health resources in boulder county and i hope you'll all join me in supporting that it's not going to be this year it'll be in 2022 and other counties have done it and they've made really meaningful change and the county that i think we should all be looking at is larimer county because they're very similar to us they have passed one of these measures and we absolutely need to act on that and this moment is a moment for us to start thinking about that and at the state house too we have to enact some measures that ensure people get the care

[51:00] they need so thank you for letting me interject that and uh i have on all these down items because i'm going to go to the vigil at the courthouse and i hope that i'll see some of you there as well and i really appreciate the opportunity to to come here and speak to you and um thank you guys for all the work you're doing it really is important and meaningful and particularly right now so thank you thank you representative mavelay very much for that um with that uh edie do you want to try one more time um yes and i'm going to try with meaning one more time um so in this conversation that we're having in this very challenging traumatic event that just happened a little over 48 hours ago

[52:01] um as policymakers you know we are managing the incredible grief that we are feeling personally and the grief we feel for our community and this is where i get choked up because when i talk about boulder and how tight-knit of a community we are and the trauma that we have just experienced um the victims their families the employees at king supers uh it's just it is going to be with us for a long time and i think we all know that and in this moment to recognize that grief and that shock

[53:04] is where we want to be but as policy makers and city council members included of course um and our federal representatives and our statewide partners we are being called to act now do something now and uh judy and i have been in a lot of meetings in the last 36 hours about how we act responsibly and not impulsively what can we do um that's really going to make a difference not only for boulder but for the state of colorado i mean what happened to us on monday every city and town that has experienced

[54:00] that is being re-traumatized which is why this is national news it's just a it's it's trauma that keeps happening over and over again but we have to act responsibly and thoughtfully so what we introduce and we will be introducing legislation in response to this but it has to be thoughtful which is why we're partnering partnering with the gifford foundation with mom-to-man action with every town for gun safety because they have for over a decade have been in the middle of this and they know better than anyone else what works what does it work what needs to be done and so we will partner with them and that will include

[55:01] mental health colorado and all of our mental health partners because as judy as we all know on this call who is a leader in addressing the mental health crisis that we have exacerbated by coved we can do it it's going to be a combination of sensible gun laws and mental health funding and making sure that those funds are directed where they need to go where they make the greatest impact so what i just want to communicate to everyone tonight is that we are bolder rights we feel the pain we take moments you know when a reporter calls us and oh my god judy how many calls have we been on steve how i mean around the world reporters

[56:00] want to hear from us and when you talk about your community and the people in your community it's really hard because the emotions are right here it's so hard to keep it together but you have to and we want to we do it for our community but when we talk about action we're going to take we can get real clear and real calm real fast we have partners that we can work with we have a state administration we have a federal administration we have local we have boulder county we are so fortunate to be working in concert with each other and not in conflict with each other and so judy i'll see judy at the vigil it's a time for grieving remembering mourning

[57:01] and also a time for action and i just very thank you sam for inviting us to join city council and i really appreciate the work that city council does and and we were on a town hall uh just you know 15 minutes ago where sam gave a very meaningful heartfelt recognition to the staff that supports boulder city council and the staffs that support the first responders that support king supers that support um our you know those who respond on the front lines to covet and i i just i really appreciate that recognition uh sam that you made because

[58:02] that just amplifies how we are all in this together so i just thank you for the opportunity to speak to boulder and it's just such an incredible honor to serve you always but especially now thank you representative hooton very much um we will turn next to dr george ialopoulos but we need to do a technical reset on some interpretation channels briefly so i'll turn to brenda to walk us through that our apologies for technical difficulties during um this meeting everyone um we are going to need to turn off interpretation momentarily and then turn it back on so at that time so you'll see your your language that you've chosen disappear you'll see the globe icon return and then you'll need to choose your language again

[59:00] um we appreciate your patience while we try this and we are lit we'll solve the problems we are having so i'm turning off interpretation now maybe excuse thank you i want to be sure i have all of our interpreters on the list because that is the problem we were having earlier more on the video justice we probably see two okay we are added all right we should be able to begin again in just a moment you should be able to choose your language again now please again if your language is english we default to english but we prefer you have chosen that language so you can hear

[60:00] anything that might be interpreted that way as well thank you so much sam thank you brenda and with that we are now going to focus a couple of next speakers on support for our community's mental health as we walk through the fire of the events that have happened so we'll turn to dr george ialopoulos he's the chief medical officer with mental health partners here in boulder dr yilopoulos you're on mute i'm sorry doctor okay can you hear me yes yeah thank you mayor weaver and nobody ever gets my name right so they call me dr e um thank you for inviting mental health partners this evening uh on this incredibly sad and solemn occasion you know this is uh you know we are your community mental health center in our community and like all of you were affected by what's going on um we uh

[61:02] send our condolences to the 10 families um and also i'm hearing stories about mental health partners relationship with the police officer officer talley who was often at our crisis center with our citizens that needed help and distinguished himself with his compassion and i'm sure we're going to hear many other stories about the other people who passed during this horrible this horrible thing that happened um i you know a lot of people uh the governor the the reverend the um the rabbi uh representative nagoos others have already said a lot of some of what i wanted to say about healing you know we we two days ago we saw the worst of mankind we saw the worst thing happen and already we're starting to see the best of mankind emerge which is often what happens in circumstances like this

[62:01] one way that we're going to start healing and we've already done this is making space to come together as a community and making space to talk about what's going on giving ourselves room to to be sad to be scared to be confused and to be angry and that's a little bit of what's going on tonight and we'll continue to go on so we're doing it in the context of this meeting but we're all going to leave this meeting and go home and we may need to be doing some more of that day-to-day for a while and i also agree with the comments that this is going to go on for some time it's going to re-emerge when there's more news about this when there's trials when there's other shootings in the in the nation we unfortunately have become a community that joins a rather terrible club um another thing about uh what's going on which is real interesting and this this rep you know this this healing this larger community concept there's a playbook for this we're not

[63:01] the first that have been through this and outside organizations other mental health centers are reaching out to us and helping guide us about how we can best serve the community and i bet you similar things are happening in all of our different roles for all of us on the screen and and this is also really big it's bigger than the resources that we have at mhp but what we're doing is we're compiling these resources and sometimes we're acting like an air traffic controller we're bringing somebody in from here and connecting it to connecting them to that organization over there who's asking that their employees at their organization get some help as an example so if you feel that your organization needs support contact us if you are aware of some mental health resources that you can that you want to donate give help out contact us and we'll we'll help find a place for that to occur

[64:02] and then individually reach out that's going to be real important self-care by the way right now is very important it's a you know if you were whatever you do for self-care walk exercise pray meditate um now is a real important time to continue doing that and um and if you were thinking about doing it now is a great time to start doing that even though you may not even feel like doing that right now on the screen um our are some of our services that we are the contact numbers for our services and uh you'll see the um one eight four let's see i have to move my head so i can say the number the one eight four four four nine three talk number that's the state crisis line or you can text talk to three eight two five five you can call our main number which is 303 443 8500

[65:02] if you have questions or you're seeking services if you have any other communication regarding you know things that you might want from the mental health center or things that you might want to direct towards the mental health service mental health center hey we have resources that we could um probably help your community to heal contact us on our website are some contact people but there's really not a wrong front door go in any door and we'll get the information to the right place um the um i think those are um oh the other thing and i don't have it right here but it'll be on our website uh we have a 24 7 crisis center uh over on airport road off of belmont and uh so you're welcome to go over there at any time uh the one last thing i want to say is i talked about reaching out but if you you know if you're concerned about

[66:00] somebody in your orbit that might seem to be withdrawn having a difficult time with this reach out to them and you can also contact us and ask kay what could we do for that we have a couple community outreach lectures given by our trauma expert dr janine dannenbell and those that information will be on the website but in the next two days she's giving a lecture or she's giving a presentation entitled making it through the um making it through together coping with the aftermath of trauma and it'll be tomorrow from 5 30 to 6 15 and on march 26 12 to 12 45 and um i think there will be some questions and answers later so um thank you for this opportunity to speak dr e that is much appreciated thank you for being here tonight um with that we'll turn next to a recording another community which has suffered from the same kind of trauma that

[67:02] boulder has just experienced as el paso texas and a judge from el paso reached out to us shortly after the events of monday and offered to give us his thoughts on um on how his community coped and what they learned so with that if we could queue up and play the address from judge ricardo salman diego please for the sake of your valuable time i would like to read a prepared statement good evening mayor weaver city representatives and community of boulder colorado i can sincerely say to all of you that the following heartfelt thoughts and condolences are truly on behalf of the entire el paso community we are now your brothers and sisters

[68:00] united by a similar situation on august 3rd where we lost 23 souls from our community we might be ahead of this imminent and difficult healing journey yet the challenges in the bereavement process continues for us as well today is red cross national giving day and we would love to offer support and our commitment to be available to help in any possible way i remember when we experienced our tragedy community leaders from santa fe texas reached out to me because of their own tragic experience at their local high school it was so surreal as they told me to get prepared to help the next community who would get hurt by a similar misfortune within 30 days midland experienced a mass shooting i can honestly tell you that our community was not ready to reach out as we are today i am confident that the resiliency and unity someday this leadership and your community will be ready to help other

[69:02] communities united web el paso county created a victims resiliency center that has been assisting the victims and their families throughout the entire process they have offered to share their learning experiences and their best practices to deal with your devastating event on august 3rd 2021 we will be unveiling a community healing garden that initiated a week after the august 3rd tragedy one month prior we will be initiating a unity and healing month in el paso county only in unity can we bring out the best in humanity and overcome the hatred in our society that led to these terrible acts we would be honored to have you visit us if you'd like to learn from our journey so that we can help with your healing process we encourage you to find a place in your own community that brings back a sense of peace and fun memories to honor the loved ones you lost as we did here in el

[70:00] paso identifying that special place will not only bring the community closer together but will start you on the road to acceptance and recovery we immediately became known as el paso strong the warm embrace of our community provided the families of the victims a sense of hope and encouragement that we were in this together today is the second anniversary of deputy peter who was senselessly killed here in el paso so we have a profound understanding of the loss of officer eric talley our heart goes out to his entire family like deputy herrera officer talley truly was a hero now i'd like to read a few statements from our community leaders here in el paso our mayor lisa our prayers are with you as you deal with the effects of the senseless act of violence you now begin the difficult process of trying to understand the nature of what

[71:00] happened and mourn the loss of your beloved community members we stand in solidarity and support that we will always encourage empathy kindness in our communities pete ferroni president of the el paso county sheriff's officer association on behalf of the el paso county sheriff's officers association we are deeply saddened by the tragedy that took place in boulder colorado thank you officer eric talley for your service we pray for peace comfort and justice for all of the victims and their families our hearts hurt with you deborah soluaga ceo of the united of united way the el paso united family resilience resiliency center understands and is here to support and assist the boulder community as you navigate this difficult time like el paso the community of boulder is resilient you're not alone boulder colorado el

[72:02] paso stands beside you thanks so much for that judge and i'm sorry for the delay um bringing back up who we have next next we have remarks from faith leaders in our community and so we would like to go next to tracy smith of the islamic center of boulder may peace be upon you thank you for having me thank you for listening as citizens of the boulder community members of icb do not want to take the spotlight off of the 10 victims who lost their lives on march 22nd they were mothers fathers daughters sons friends employees

[73:01] and beautiful people who did not deserve the horror and suffering they endured on that terrible day everyone deserves the right to safely live their lives and without fear our hearts are heavy and full of compassion and sorrow for the victims those who love them and for all those who experience trauma and violence the sad reality is right now within the muslim community there is fear stress and anxiety because of the very name of a killer we just want to check in with our bolder neighbors and tell you to be mindful of your muslim friends i have spoken to some who are afraid to leave the house others who are changing up the past of their daily walks women who are fearful of wearing their hijabs in public and men with beards who feel they're

[74:00] going to be targeted because of an increased threat of backlash icb has temporarily suspended our daily prayers the person who murdered 10 people at king supers in boulder does not represent the muslim community he doesn't represent islam he just happens to have a muslim name it is important to remember not to stigmatize an entire group of people islam teaches us to live our best lives muslims just want to live in harmony in their communities if anyone would like to ask questions about muslim life or about islam i invite them to contact the islamic center of boulder we are always available that being said the outpouring of love and support that we have received of the last day or a couple of days has been overwhelming

[75:01] all this kindness is coming from a community that's already grieving the loss of their own sweet neighbors and boulder rights still have space in their hearts for the extra comfort and generosity for the muslim community we would like to wholeheartedly thank boulder for this kindness we're so grateful thank you boulder for showing up but this is not about us we are all residents of the city of boulder and we feel the great pain and sadness that runs throughout the entire boulder community we stand shoulder to shoulder with our bolder neighbors in grief and solidarity boulder police officer eric talley will be remembered for his sacrifice we will never forget the victims of this terrible tragedy if icb can help fill a gap or support in any way please please reach out to us

[76:01] thank you so much thank you ms smith it's much appreciated um next we'll go to reverend nicole lamarche from the community united church of christ good evening thank you so much for creating this space we are based at the corner of table mesa and lehigh and south boulder and i regret that we're convening for such a reason tonight but i give thanks that this year has taught us how to come together creatively across a wide geography defying many previous uh limitations so thank you for holding this space i find that i've been at the vigils and here tonight with sorrow and sadness grief and groans but also in a spirit of confession that king supers those people this place you are my people when i find myself asking if i could have done more to protect them to protect us the employees the shoppers the first

[77:01] responders officer eric talley showed up on my doorstep this past june when our congregation and community became the victim of a hate crime that left us reeling he responded quickly and kindly i'm angry and deeply mourning that he is gone for him for his family for his seven children and for all of us what could i have done what could we have done to make it that they were all still here i also confess that i have lived the with this mythology that many of us say of the bolder bubble that we are somehow separate from the sickness of the american culture our family came here just for that bubble the commitment to public schools the arts bike paths a love of open space a love of justice and now i am reminded that that was an illusion we are america too

[78:01] and if that can happen in our paradise there is nowhere we can hide from this i confess and lament for the ways that i was complacent because of a false idea of this sense of privilege among our squares tonight i imagine we have sadness shock grief anger confusion questions and more and like others have said i hope we can have space for one another to let ourselves feel whatever we need to feel over the days weeks months and even years ahead i know i feel a loss of the people and also the place it is something like a community center for those of us who call this neighborhood home and for those who seek it out and as we channel our emotions i also find myself wondering if this year has prepared us for exactly what we need to do next because this year we learned to put our

[79:01] energy our science our spiritual and material resources our attention our connections our prayer and our political will toward changing and changing fast toward pivoting innovating in order to save us all and we can do that for this too i encourage us to hold ourselves accountable to keep pushing to showing up with our bodies our hearts and our prayers to let this wound be a window to another world i have learned that sometimes windows close so we must push and pray now may each of you who mourn tonight be comforted may all who fear no peace may all who feel trauma find space to transform it may our god of love be with you and may hope find you whoever you are and wherever you are

[80:00] thank you reverend lamarche um and i'll call now on uh pastor randy spalding of the boulder mennonite church thank you for inviting me to this gathering and for including faith in our larger response to this horrible moment boulder mennonite church is just steps away from the table mesa king supers on the corner of broadway and table mesa and we're feeling the suffering and pain of our community and for those of us who haven't really directly experienced this senseless act of violence we cannot completely know the pain of loved ones and friends and family who have been directly affected but still we are all hurting and for many of us our faith is what gives us a rock to stand on and enables us to name that deep pain and it also enables us to respond to it with compassion and love and care

[81:01] and with actions that promote healing and hope our mennonite community is open to anyone in these days ahead of any faith or no faith who just need a quiet space to come in and meditate and pray or to talk our faith calls us to action as well to condemn the violence and killing and to work as we all want to toward a world where people struggling mentally or physically or spiritually may get the help they need and where weapons made for killing will one day be made into gardening tools so that they may never be used again against human beings or any creature most of all it's important for people to know that our faith communities are here to offer compassion and care to listen and to walk beside our boulder community in

[82:00] our grief our anger our frustration and our sorrow we know that the boulder community is a resilient community and together with you city and county leaders and with first responders and faith communities we're going to make our way forward and we'll do it together i wish you all healing and peace in the days ahead thank you thank you reverend spalding um we'll turn next to our community um for input and we'll begin with um madeleine strong woodley of the boulder naacp good evening everybody and thank you for having me to uh mayor weaver our city council the boulder city council i'd also like to acknowledge my mayor

[83:01] longmont mayor brian bagley as well as um speaker pro tem junior joseph and um i also represent and i'm speaking on behalf of the boulder police oversight task force initially then implementation team and now we have invulnerable police oversight panel a project that we undertook and with the outstanding contributions of an amazing group of folk we did within two years would typically take has taken some up to five and even more years to to make that happen so that we're very grateful to have been allowed to be to have been requested and allowed to come together and work i i am going to ask

[84:00] forgiveness if i leave anybody's name off i'd like you if you could refer to last tuesday's council meeting minutes there was a declaration read into the minutes uh and all of the names of the persons that participated in that but in the meantime i'd like to uh honor participants todd conklin jr our own sean ray dr michelle simpson dr sheila davis dr um well attorney mike rafiq and dr james hill we were under the guidance and direction very capable of facilitation of dr carolyn love pam davis joey la perry lapari i'm sorry and city manager amy kane as i said forgive me if i have left anyone out i'd like to also acknowledge police

[85:01] chief uh maris harold for the work she's done and she was hired within the time that we came together and we supported that effort as well the boulder county naacp asked if i would represent that organization and as a lifetime member of the memphis branch first of all and now the boulder county branch who we are now we approximately three plus years old and we're 700 plus members strong so if you don't know who we are you don't know the work we're doing you don't know our mission and our vision please take the time to look us up and and join us in the work that we're doing now needless to say the world mourns with us the world is mourning with us and personally at the point that i was reaching out to

[86:01] uh very special asian friends for what happened in atlanta uh two weeks ago and that tragedy happened to have this come this close to home and this level of tragedy was overwhelming and is still overwhelming overwhelming i'm asking that uh well first of all i'd like to to point out a couple of things one is the necessity the absolute necessity for us to stand with our police force and with our city leaders especially now if you think about it we're trained and taught to go in the opposite direction of trouble but these brave people are trained and have accepted the call to go

[87:00] into trouble to protect us for that officer eric talley answered that call and gave his life for that to his wife and those seven children i know the days are dark i know they have to be now and maybe you don't see your way but there's still grace because you have the grace of each other and so now i urge you and encourage you to lean on each other with all you got with all the love this this life allows we feel for you we are with you we are all working um in in our own ways to make sure that we can support and provide the

[88:00] support that we're able to give you we ask that you reach back out to us for any needs that you're having that we're not meeting we hear our hearts are heavy our minds and our bodies are willing and we want you to know that if unlike you've ever known it before if you ever need it to lean embrace the safety of being able to lean now because we're here we're here for you i'd also ask that we encourage and stand for the family of the shooter we don't know what they're going through but we know they didn't plan on this and so

[89:01] we that kind of support is necessary as well for the family and the rest i think it will um take the course that it it that is laid out and that it should i want to encourage our legislative team um that includes and again forgive me if i i don't want to call the names because i may miss someone and that's not my heart i would uh like to i've been watching uh representative mcgoose lately and uh and praying and keeping him uplifted as well as our governor these are some perilous times pope folks and we if if there's ever been a time that we need to stand now is that time

[90:03] i also urge us all to create our own calls to action and make sure that those calls are actionable do something that's going to help somebody that's going to encourage somebody and that's going to keep this alive we must not let tomorrow come and the sting that we felt monday when this first happened and it continued to sting we must not let that fade this was a this is a horrific tragedy and it stings deeply and so i encourage everyone don't let the sting fade keep the sting stinging because it's through that that we will get the change that we so desperately

[91:00] need again i um represent the uh our boulder county branch your boulder county branch naacp specifically the boulder pool and the boulder police oversight uh task force implementation team the greatest team on earth and uh and then lastly on behalf of my pastor senior pastor james ray pastor second baptist church boulder 5300 baseline road boulder colorado 80303 we welcome you to join us with the work that we're doing in support of this and in coming up with ways that can serve to be preventive in closing i'm asking everyone again within the sound of my voice to reach out to your networks and join us standing in solidarity

[92:01] to keep the staying stinging i thank you for having me uh manager amy kane i appreciate you inviting me and thank you everyone within the sound of my voice have a great evening thank you ms woodley much appreciated with that we will next go to um amy nelson thank you for having me here today um as i prepared to speak here today um i had a loss of words and i'm uh grieving and i text friends and asked how do i do this without crying and they told me i don't my love for my community and then my love for my students today i get to show up as my authentic self and my community so that's what i'm gonna do which means i'm probably gonna go over two minutes because i'm gonna have to pause and let the tears flow but um know that these tears are the love that i have for this community and the pain that i feel that i know that we're all feeling

[93:00] um i'm going to try to read because it's the only way i know to get through this i've been at a loss of words since monday when my 17 year old daughter told me there was an active shooter at the king supers near fairview where i worked for four years my school that i still serve in my current role my mind immediately went to denny stone denny was my student for three years it was december of the senior year after weeks of helping him complete applications the colleagues and i celebrated him being offered a position at king supers where he worked until monday i wish i could describe to you how he's how excited it was he was to share the good news to join that role to be that role in the community there's so many memories like this when i've tried desperately to bring to the surface ever since many colleagues and former students have reached out and shared photographs and memories amongst their condolences

[94:01] some make me laugh some make me smile most fill my eyes with tears i thought about the santa hat denny wore every day of december every year that i taught him the speaker he carried down the halls during passing periods and drive everyone crazy with his old soul or holiday music i thought about how honored he was and how he always kept me on my toes i thought about my colleagues who described their favorite part of going to the local store was running into denny i thought about how much he loved to tease me but if you know me you know i teased him right back most people in boulder are impressed by my sneaker game denny questioned my choice in footwear and would laugh hysterically at my white jays or forces and asked why would anyone buy white shoes then there's my first day as a teacher at fairview high school i gave the fir the typical first day of school speech i told the students how committed i was to being an educator how it was going to be a great year how much i cared about each one of them

[95:00] denny had the audacity to challenge me he cut me off and told me i was gonna have to prove it to him but during our celebration on his last day of high school i'm sorry as we laughed cried and joked about all the memories we made during those years i reminded him of the first day we met we laughed when i told him he'd ruined my speech and he laughed and said well it worked you earned my trust and respect on monday night i tweeted i'm literally terrified to learn the other nine names my friend and colleague called me tuesday morning to tell me the news jenny was one of the names she told me exactly what i was terrified to hear everything after that was a blur the emotions were too big i should add that i just attended two student funerals from a car accident just just over two months ago and i'm still grieving those losses

[96:00] this felt and still feels like too much but in her own grief my friend knew i needed support she immediately made calls and colleagues and former colleagues all vaccinated rushed to be with me i received more phone calls and messages that i can count friends came to just sit with me others brought food to encourage me to eat or care packages for my swollen eyes i share this for a reason because as i think about boulder's collective healing i encourage you to think about all members of our community i know others are grieving in the same ways that i am whether personally connected to the lives lost during this senseless act of violence on monday the entire community is grieving we must hold space to grieve for ourselves and for each other we must care for the families that are most directly impacted but we also must think about how we collectively care for each other denny stone it's not lost to me that many are using

[97:00] the hashtag boulderstrong and denny's last name was originally misspelled as strong since names are announced we've heard witnesses speak to denny's heroic efforts there's not a doubt in my mind that these accounts are true a friend who also cares deeply about denny texts me and asks why would he run too instead of away from the gunshots amy well i may wish the same i know that's not denny's character then he died a hero thank you for saying his name thank you for remembering him as the hero he was did he was feisty but he cared deeply and had a soft heart underneath that tough exterior boulder is denny strong but only if we collectively care for each other and our community in the ways that denny clearly did take care of yourselves take care of each other boulder thank you thank you ms nelson um next we are checking on whether tina marquis

[98:02] is here but we'll move now to herman zuckerman as we bring tm in herman thanks sam um first of all i'd like to thank city council for holding on this special meeting to help our community cope with what happened on monday at the table mesa king supers and i want to recognize you mayor sam for the way you've represented our city and you've been called to speak on this tragedy by so many local national and even international news agencies um i attended an online vigil last night which was put on by boulder's rabbinical community and one thing i heard really stuck with me and i'll share it it was said by rabbi fred green of congregation hashem rabbi greene spoke of the way people in the face of tragedy tend to ask how could god have let this happen he acknowledged that this is natural but that he believed that in moments like ours

[99:00] god is simply grieving along with all of us the message i took from this is the tragedies like accidents happen and when they do we have to collectively grieve and do so with the intention of coming closer together as a community like so many of you the table mesa king supers for me is my market besides my home and office it's the place i've visited the most in all of boulder as an avid cook and someone who once worked as a stock boy in a market i find the american supermarket to be a world of wonders and i appreciate what it takes to keep one running since covid i have rarely let the opportunity pass to tell staff at king supers how much i appreciate the skill and the courage that they've gifted us with just by doing their jobs

[100:00] i have called them heroes and now these workers and our neighbors which is really one community together our community has been visited by a terrible event and suffered an unspeakable loss let us grieve together with the intention of coming closer together let us hold each other and let us fully feel our loss to make room for the long road of healing that stretches in front of us thank you so much herman next we will turn to tina marquis she's the president of the boulder valley school district board of education tina hi thank you for organizing this event and inviting me to participate um at the boulder valley school district we are so saddened by this tragic event

[101:00] and we're even more disappointed that gun violence and the fear of gun violence is a part of our students everyday lives now more than ever in response to the event the boulder valley school district has activated its trauma support teams and is helping to provide resources to help our families and our staff and our community talk about this event with their children you can find them on bvsd.org we understand how much our families are going through and particularly the families in south boulder we know that we're going to need time to think about these events we know that parents and students and staff will have questions in the coming weeks and months and as a district we'll be creating this space to have those conversations especially as we return to in-person learning in the next week again we send our condolences to the families and we

[102:00] are so deeply saddened by what's happened in our community and we're here to help please reach out to the district if you need a partner and resources thank you thank you tina um next we'll hear from pierce limbits who is a fifth grader at bixley thank you for hearing my words i'm pierce limits and i'm a fifth grader at bixby school in south boulder i am outraged by the mass shooting in my grocery store it should not have happened and i am very sad for the victims families the victims could have been any one of us even my mom who does her grocery shopping before she picks me up from school at 3 15. the other person the person who did this should never have done it and should never have had a

[103:01] gun how many people have to die before we understand this this this grateful sorry i am grateful for the people and the police officers who stopped this especially eric talley who gave his life we will never recover from this until we know it will never happen again i am 11 years old and i think everyone should do their best to fix this it is unimaginable how the fam how the victims families are feeling and no one should ever have to go through something as tragic as this please keep us safe in the future thank you pierce um let's see uh next we will call on soraya latif nixie thank you so much your words and

[104:01] your presence have so much power i really appreciate hearing from you hi everyone i invite you all to just take a moment to take a deep breath in and take a deep exhale out and just acknowledge that your breath is there and that you are alive at this moment with all of its grief and its immensity that you are here breathing i am an asian black indigenous immigrant woman i have an islamic name i grew up in muslim households and i'm in a healing and inherently political body and then a body that has truthfully rarely felt safe in this country including while living in boulder i'm a cu boulder alum and i co-lead a youth-led civic engagement program called public achievement in boulder working with 200 middle and high school youth and 60 cu students the shooting for our students followed a super spreader riot on the university hill a mass shooting just last week in atlanta and a semester in a pandemic without any

[105:00] break the university has asked us to continue to hold classes ask students to still show up following this we're going without rest and without time to process and we're working really hard to hold space with what feels like not much institutional support this is the true experience of many of our students heroes of this moment are students who are leading boulder valley's mutual aid work who got groceries to those experiencing trauma in the last 48 hours after monday and the healer healers and educators who have centered community care in the midst of a pandemic and multiple mass shootings i also really value the stories and the commitments shared here today by our leaders and community members on this call and i guarantee you that my students are going to continue to hold all of us here accountable to what we're promising for years my students have organized on the urgency of addressing gun violence in our country so that its horrors did not arrive here in our community knowing fully well that it could

[106:00] my students and i often remind ourselves that we are the ones we've been waiting for because nobody else is going to rescue us young people every day have to tell themselves this at this moment and this remains our story of now three years ago students at fairview high school one of them my sister just over a mile away from the king supers organized a walkout around gun violence in our country and today when i was speaking with her she said if this shooting had happened on a school day pre-covered 19 that that store would have been filled with high school students hanging out i sat recalling sandy hook columbine we are not immune i sat thinking of trayvon martin and brianna taylor i am not immune we have talk of returning to normal following vaccines but we know that trauma leads to overproduction of stress and stress hormones that when activated do not allow us to return to normal for long periods of time my api students and their loved ones have expressed not wanting to leave

[107:00] their houses for the last few weeks and now what does it mean to wake up in this country following what happened last week and on monday how do we heal when moments feel so compounded when these issues feel so pervasive and what do we each do with that precious breath that we got to wake up today and hold i invite you to ask yourself and i ask myself this daily am i in a daily practice of witnessing who is not represented in any spaces i work in whose breath is no longer with us whose rights to freedom or dignity might we be actively contributing to reducing through our choices ask what is needed for every identity and body to feel safe have we each questioned how that safety might look and mean different things from our own safety this is one of the most pervasive issues gun violence of my generation and still nothing prepares you for the hours you try spending to hear back from if your

[108:00] students and your colleagues and your best friends are okay and safe and alive and to see if there's a name on a list you might recognize and then attempt to process all of the moving parts of how we got here so all the families and community of those who are lost i'm so sorry and i love you this has been regarded as a once-in-a-lifetime shooting in boulder yet we know gun violence has taken so many lives in this country we are living through what many would call a once in a lifetime pandemic yet we know that in access to health care and resources racism and caste kills people across our country and our world daily without there being a cove at 19. we know this and we don't heal by viewing our wounds as isolated and insulated we heal by learning holding and acting on behalf of how the issues and lack of previous action connect and perpetuate systems and a culture that can reinforce harm rather than prevent it rather than treating each other as a community

[109:00] may we not wait to be in community only after tragedy but may we practice community every single day i told my students in a healing circle this morning don't let this slip and move past us like madeline was saying earlier keep the sting singing violence shouldn't have to arrive at our door for us to care but sadly it did let us commit each of our breaths to whole space for our community to build resources for free therapy to not define freedom as free for only one kind of person may we push institutions to allow room for being human in an unimaginable moment of overlapping inequity and give us time for self-care and community care may we not separate our healing from our politics and may we always believe that where there is community and where there are people there is healing to be found and may we not perpetuate any further pulling away from one another but show solidarity to our islamic community our new divergent communities may remember that these were whole lives

[110:00] lost and that we have a duty to protect each other and walk home together safely may we commit and i mean please deeply commit our breath to imagine a world and thus a community such as this that is unlike the current status quo and to not stop the work at what others won't allow when it means safer communities for all of us thank you so much for your time thank you soraya next we will go to christine chen who is a new member of the human relations commission christine thank you mayor weaver and thank you to city council for inviting me to speak tonight one week and one day ago you appointed me to the human relations commission and as i was watching city council proceedings on my television i also had my laptop open and was reading the news about what was happening in atlanta which was eight

[111:01] days ago today as the news unfolded i learned that of the eight people who were killed six of them were asian women three of them were over the age of 60. on monday i went to my parents home to speak with them about rising anti-asian violence and to ask them to please take care when they went to the grocery store a couple of hours later i saw the news that at my own grocery store less than a mile away from my home there was a gunman on the loose i come here today as a member of the community as a two-time member of the boulder community i grew up here in the 80s and my grandmother lived on darley just a couple of blocks from the table mesa king supers

[112:00] she used to go to esl classes at the paddock center which is now community montessori and she would take me to king supers and i would ride the mechanical horse for a penny and i would get my free cookie from the bakery when i moved back to boulder two and a half years ago i came to give my children the community that i had experienced here growing up and i chose to move to table mesa because i knew that community and during this pandemic as with most everyone else in the neighborhood it's pretty much been the only place i've spent any time with any regularity besides the walls of my own home my kids rode the penny horse before they had to put it away when code broke out they get free cookies from the bakery just last saturday i stepped in to buy a

[113:01] balloon for a five-year-old neighbor and the young man who was at the registry waited extremely patiently while i took an eternity to decide whether i wanted to get a gold balloon or a silver balloon on a regular basis terry bagged my groceries yesterday i decided to walk to king supers to bring some flowers and pay my respects and on my walk there i ran into a neighbor who was outside who is an elderly asian man who's lived in the community for decades and we spoke and he we spoke about what happened on monday and we also spoke about the rising violence against asians and we spoke about atlanta and he said to me even though he's been in this country probably about 50 years like my parents

[114:02] he said to me that he's afraid to go out he said to me he's afraid to be seen in public with other elderly asians because it's become too dangerous i bring all these threads together because we are all members of multiple communities all of us here are members of the boulder community some of us are asian-american others are black others are developmentally disabled like the many employees of king supers and table mesa others have purple hair for some reason so many of the employees at king sleepers died they heard blue and purple and it brought me such joy every time i i went and i hope it will again when i go again we're all members of many different communities and we're also all facing many pandemics and many epidemics we have a global health pandemic right now we have an epidemic of racism we have an epidemic of gun violence

[115:02] as our community moves on and tries to heal i hope that we can all recognize that we all come from many different communities that we can hold space for each other that we can listen that we can be there for each other and we can all learn to move forward together thank you thank you christine next we'll call on lojojo i'm sorry if i mispronounced that um is director of public relations for the community organization thank you so much uh amir webb for giving me opportunities uh i'll first of all think that it's a grateful for me to be here especially the city of boulder council to invite me and i would like to send my condolences to

[116:01] the community who have lost their life in timely manner and is the community of boulder who endure the grief you are qualified and you are terrified so me as a bowler resident i do go to use king super to do shopping i i take my kids at the king super the very king super my my kids are picking whatever they want ice cream whatever they want i go shopping on sunday in the same king super now i'm so horrified my kids are terrible and i feel unsafe

[117:00] i'm working here in pola bola school school district i'm worried of the kids next week they are coming back to school every day we attend the security meeting on how to to keep the school the kids innocent kids in a school itself so it's very unfortunate situation our resident of pola right now african-americans every day who are hearing gun violence killed so i scared when we had that thing on monday i called my wife i was at the school i was asking why the kids and what are the members who are calling every members where they are

[118:01] to make sure that we are safe because the news of gun violence and racism is really terrifying our community especially african americans who are here in pola county for the last 15 years and we never given any opportunity to our grievances monday shooting is just so terrifying and was scared to go yesterday i went to the king super to shop for my kids because my kid could not be in the house without food without me i have to go every one of us in the king super were not looking at each other on eyes because we are scared i'm happy that our governor our representatives they were able to attend these special meetings of our

[119:00] community to share the sorrows and the love and prayers to the family especially the policemen who have paid ultimate christ to keep us safe to keep my family safe my kids and polar residents schools i hope it is time that we engage ourselves especially community policing leadership structure and to work with the law enforcement so that we identify situations and make the techniques that will help us to solve problems within the families within the community within our youth inclusive leadership while we can engage ourselves and dialogue among ourselves because we are the community each and every day asian american

[120:01] indians black everyday stories killing president i hope will open inclusive leadership engagement dialogue network information sharing so that such barbaric act within our community cannot be existing let's work together we need equitable community social work and social gathering to discuss and engage ourselves in areas where we see they say loopholes so as a director of public relations within our life here in boulder so we are looking forward to work together the community of bola council and mayor to make sure that we engage our community our students because there is a lot of mental issues

[121:01] going on without endemic economic issues these were the avenues or situations of such like monday arising we need to make sure that we treat those things because we're engaging each other because i'm still now at the workplace right now as the duck is getting getting in i'm scared too because i don't know who is behind me who is next to me because i have to go and see my kids i have to go so let's work together join with our lost enforcement work together let's help them to make sure that we share information whatever the situation that you are in share the information with borla city council mental health is growing so i'm very highly welcome to any support whatever we can do to discuss and engage our community our kids to teach our kids to love

[122:00] and let's stand with the family who have lost their loved ones let's pray with them whatever resource that we have here in our ebola community the african community who are able to extend and to work together in solidarity to make sure that we achieve what we want to make this community uh safe and better and friendly thank you so much mayor for inviting me and i appreciate to to work with you whatever way you wanted our community to engage in thank you so much i appreciate it and uh city bola city council thank you so much appreciate it thank you um next we have jeff cahoon from the boulder area labor council of the afl-cio thank you mayor weaver thank you city council for holding this meeting i i have to start by observing the fact that of the 10 victims four were union

[123:01] members three from cave supers and of course our brother officer tully um that it's it's painful to observe but as as a leader of an organization that's on more than 140 years old uh success basically is a successor to the uh lewisville labor council founded in the 1860s um we've observed a lot of pain and suffering in massacres and let's recognize that for what it is it was it was a massacre generally because we were fighting for workers rights and all of these workers and working people and the small business people that were slaughtered senselessly at king supers remind us of how we handle this in the

[124:01] history of labor and the way we do it is really quite basic is we recognize we have to address issues and we fight and we lose and we fight and we lose and we fight and we win we have issues in front of us i think they're clearly identified by our um our public servant friends mental health is an enormous issue and one that is underfunded and that we can work on gun safety is an enormous issue and one we can work with and one we could solve the history of labor tells us we have to work on issues and solve the best way to deal with any sort of

[125:00] people oh dear we have we have a problem excuse me there you go i think we have them muted now go ahead yeah there you go so what i'm going to suggest is something that was suggested originally by a very famous labor leader named joe hill joe was a labor organizer that was basically assassinated on trumped up charges by the state of utah back in 1910 but we've had blood low that we've had to recover from and we've had the columbine mine massacre that where the graves for those my 11 miners that were killed by the state police in 1926 are in lewisville in lafayette and the

[126:00] last of joe hill's ashes are scattered around the graves of the workers in the lafayette cemetery and joe hell taught us something his last words don't mourn organize and around these issues we can and that's how we respond to a tragedy like this let us work together to fund mental health and help people like the killer that slaughtered us not to to be able to find peace let us work together to deal with gun safety as a broad issue and let us recognize we may have to fight and lose and fight and lose before we fight and win but the this is the way we memorialize our loss and this is the way we can make a difference moving forward

[127:00] thank you mayor weaver thank you jeff um with that we are going to see brenda i'm going to check in chris and pam are at the um vigil that's being held and we're going to have them bring in three people from that vigil if they'd like to speak to us um are you ready to go to that or should we have another speaker first so it looks like speaking my mind it is a little bit more difficult in front of you all um but i've given a lot of thought you know to our circumstances and listen to us all debate what the answers are and it does not seem that it's an either or answer um you know in america we have a tendency to value human life on net worth and if you don't have net worth you're not worth anything and you know depression is up

[128:01] suicide is up addiction is up and mass shooting is up and it's time we really examine what our values and we see this community and people do come together and as a whole i don't think americans as a whole but as a culture we have to face this aspect of our of our social construct of what we value and i don't know that we can just focus on gun control or gun regulation is one option i don't think that's the only answer i don't think it's just mental health although there are not enough beds for people who need help there are no beds um we also have to look at wealth disparity and a living wage in this country those are things that help agitate and and create violence so i don't know that i have all the answers at all but you know as i think about and i listen to us all debate

[129:01] what we need to do we need to [Music] make america equitable and a healthy place people can go get a bed if they're struggling or can get mental health care we don't have people with ak-15s and that people can make a living wage so i really appreciate mutual aid being out here i'm a big supporter of mutual aid they do a lot for the community and i appreciate y'all letting me spout off thank you hi my name's jenny and i think music is a great healer so if anyone would please join me in a bob dylan song of blowing in the

[130:00] wind you can all look it up on your phones google it because i don't want to sing alone i'll give you a second okay anyone that's been in boulder long enough will know the song or if you've been to hippie bluegrass church you'll know the song how [Music] [Music] tonight i'm going to be speaking on it for just a few minutes on a more personal level jodie waters victim number 10 was my sister mr wreck she called her her soul sister jody who always had her back actually the funny thing about jody was we didn't even in my family know her

[131:00] last name she was even in my contacts in my phone as just jody but that'll change for us this week i got a call from my sister on monday in the late afternoon madeline was getting really worried she hadn't heard from jody since earlier that day since before the shooting and jody lived right across the street from that table mesa king supers and madeline knew that she shopped there almost every day that was her store like it was so many people's store stores and since the shooting her daughters had not heard from her and madeline had not heard from her and nobody heard from her and then i texted my sister at 4 30 p.m and i said madeline did you hear from jody and she said she had it and then i texted her at 5 30 and she still had it and then my daughters texted madeline at six and then at seven and we still heard nothing but by this time a deep sense of dread began to fill my family we all went to sleep that night not knowing

[132:00] my sister madeline was still hoping for the best but then in the early hours of the morning on that tuesday we got the news that jody was one of the 10 victims and it was so so devastating for us and i'm just the sister of jody's best friend and it was devastating for me i can't even imagine how her family felt her daughters who she was so close to and who texted her every day and how all the families of victims felt that night going into tuesday morning waiting for a phone call and so when people from all over the city and the country and even in the world i got i got a call from the mayor of vermont negev asking how i was and is the family okay and i said to each one of them we're not okay i am not okay the city is not okay none of us are okay in this community is certainly not okay and what happened is not okay but you know what at this time what

[133:01] tragedy does is kind of it's it's kind of interesting it brings people together so whereas there was where there could be strife in the community now we're all one and we're working together as one and when people are one they can accomplish so much more and so i don't want to give up hope on humanity and i won't give up hope on this city none of us will but we will stand together and we're gonna do do what jody did and we're gonna have each other's back thank you thank you tara um juni are you ready or great um so um councilmember joseph is going to read a letter and explain what the letter is about judy thank you very much mayor weaver we received a letter from um you know from the university of colorado boulder student government cusg

[134:01] and the letter is to the community today we remember and honor the lives of denise strong nevin sinistek sick ricky olds trollana bart kobiak terry lakey suzanne fountain kevin mahoney len murray jody waters and officer eric talley our deepest sympathies go out to the lives lost and those directly impacted by the horrific events that transpired on march 22 at king supers and boulder the 10 victims who lost their lives were friends

[135:00] families and neighbors of our community this was this reprehensible act of violence is one that will inevitably affect our community for the foreseeable future we recognize the lifelong impact that this will have on those affected by this tragedy thanks to the swift action of the boulder police department and additional regional law enforcement agencies further loss of lives were prevented the the herrick act of officer tali as the first officer on the scene demonstrates the commitment that our first responders have in protecting our community from ebrigid acts of violence today we want to recognize the immense amount

[136:01] of pain that our community is enduring it is okay to mourn and grieve it is okay to feel confused and hurt we offer our deepest condolences to those who are experiencing these emotions as students and members of the boulder community we share these heartaches and grieve alongside our community members as cu students it is our responsibility to not only support each other but to support a greater bolder community during times of adversity and heartache such as these we must lean on each other we could we recognize that individuals are all experiencing pain and griefs and grief in their unique ways

[137:01] our community will be gathering at fairview high school this thursday march 25th at 6 30 pm for a kindle light vigil any and all are welcome let us honor and remember the 10 lives lost following march 22nd as a community member we will not let hatred prevail instead let us foster love compassion and unity and this letter was from molly frommet the student body president isaiah chivas student body president george conway student body president abby henson judicial branch chief justice julia foley legislative council president and also the students wanted to let community member knows if you're seeking individual support

[138:00] they would encourage you to engage with the following university resources that are free of charge the office of victim assistance which provide free and confidential support consultation advocacy information and short-term counseling services to students graduate students faculty and staff who are experiencing a traumatic disturbance or life disruptive event student can call 303-492-8855 to connect with the office of victims assistance counselor or to receive services 24 7. they can go to https slash www.color ova and also there's the counseling and psychiatric services

[139:00] which is the counseling and psychiatric service available for telehealth which is virtual counseling appointments and support services including crisis support student can call 303 licensed 492-2277 24 7. student can also visit e let's talk for an informal and confidential consultation with a counselor which is at www.colorado.edu counseling and again this is a letter from a student from the university and i just also would like to apologize um part of it is my accent as well when i was saying the name of the victims i did not pronounce them well enough i apologize for that and um thank you very much sam thank you junie for that and thank you to the cu student government for putting

[140:02] out that letter next we will go to david gross who is a professor at the university as well as a former regent candidate david hi uh thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight uh yeah my name is dave gross and i've lived in boulder for 25 years i'm a member of the cu faculty i'm a husband son-in-law and father of two kids all here i'm devastated and heartbroken by this this mass murder committed here in our home so i'd like to take a minute to speak about guns my training is as an economist and so i'll use this time to speak about guns from that perspective when we teach economics the first thing we teach is that everyone acting in their own best interest produces the best outcome and then the second thing we teach is that's not really true and the main reason it's not true is negative externalities uh the best example of a negative externality is of course

[141:00] pollution it may be best for me to produce some product in the cheapest way possible but if the effects of my production are so deleterious to the community and the pollution i create dominates the benefit of uh the product or even the lower price we would all deem it perfectly reasonable to restrain my activity to restrict my freedom to mitigate this harm well people who choose to own guns obviously derive benefit from gun ownership and that first principle of economics everyone acting on their own best interests producing the best outcome is often cited as a justification not to restrict individual freedoms but that second principle the negative externalities must also be applied it's impossible for me to detail the magnitude and dimensions of the negative impact that unrestricted gun ownership visited on me personally my family my friends and all the members of this wide community the hurt the harm experienced by the hundreds of thousands of members of the boulder community and officer talley's seven children and all of the other victims families

[142:00] clearly outweighs any and all benefits of unrestricted gun ownership we must restrict gun ownership right now these negative externalities these threats to humanity are just too great thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight thank you david next we'll turn to tashiana hernandez of the community foundation of boulder tatiana you're muted thank you uh thank you mayor weaver and all of boulder city council for the opportunity to speak with our community tonight at such a dark time our hearts and deepest sympathies are with the friends and families of the beloved friends and neighbors we lost and with everyone who is suffering tonight your community foundation is here to support the needs of our community

[143:00] and we have received an outpouring of support from colleagues at community foundations in dayton ohio el paso san antonio texas and ventura california who are lending us their guidance and sharing their experiences so that we can best serve the needs of our community at this time unfathomably there is expertise in our world when it comes to responding to events like this it is also sad consolation that we have a partner in our state with expertise on how to best respond to the needs of those most directly affected we are working closely with the colorado healing fund so that together we can help ease the burden of monday's horrific events for those victims we also we're also working in partnership with the city our local nonprofit community and others to provide financial support where it's needed in a responsive and transparent way and in that spirit of transparency i want to share with you what we know now

[144:00] regarding how funds raised by the community foundation will support our community if we think about the needs of our community as concentric circles of proximity at the core are the needs of families who lost loved ones this core is where our partnership with the colorado healing fund is of utmost importance and where the majority of the funds we raise will go the next circle of proximity includes those who experienced the event first hand colorado healing fund in partnership with the colorado organization for victims assistance will define where their support ends within that second circle and where our support can begin and the third circle is our entire community we have suffered a collective trauma and it will take time to understand and process our grief our community has short and long-term needs and we will continue to work with our partners to respond to and hold

[145:01] space for the full scale of our loss we will get through this together and we will do so by leaning on each other we will get through this by remembering every person we lost and love every person we meet even more and in closing i'll say let our aching hearts be a testament to the depth of love that we have for each other and for our community thank you all so much thank you tatiana next we'll go to nicki mccord who i believe was recently appointed to one of the city's boards nikki thank you for inviting me to speak i carry this responsibility with respect for the victims and for my community this was difficult for me to write

[146:01] how do i pay respect to the victims of this mass shooting including the loss of life of a police officer and share my fears about what our response to this tragedy could mean for people who look like me my attempt at striking this balance will begin with me reading the names of the victims and then going into my remarks denny stonk nevin stanisek ricky olds shalonna bartkowiak suzanne fountain terry liker eric talley kevin mahoney lynn murray jody waters right now we as a community do not feel safe and we may be willing to do anything to regain that sense of safety so we're asking ourselves we're asking

[147:00] people in positions of power to take action for many in my community the action that needs to happen to regain their sense of safety comes in the form of police presence the good guys with guns protecting them from whatever harm could come their way heroically demonstrated in the actions of officer talley who gave his life to protect the safety of those still in king supers for me in the normal course of my daily life based on my shared identity with brianna taylor cory gaines ayanna stanley jones tatiana jefferson my sense of safety does not lie in the hands of those good guys with guns the exact same people my neighbors rely on for their safety so what do we do what do we do as a community to regain our sense of safety

[148:01] well the answer does not lie in inaction what we do and more importantly what you do is act in a way that is brave act in a way that takes you out of your comfort zone act in a way that may make you unpopular act in a way that may make you lose your position of power because this community is hurting and we don't feel safe and acting in whatever way that provides safety for all of us who live in this 30 square miles surrounded by reality is what will have a lasting positive impact on those of us who call boulder colorado home thank you thank you nikki next we have markeisha k hagan one of our community connectors

[149:00] thank you so much for the opportunity to speak here today and i'll try to keep it brief so i'd like to start by first giving my condolences to all who have been affected by this tragedy in preparation for me speaking here today i made a list of some of the sentiments that reflect how i and many that i have heard from in the community have been feeling and i'd like to share that with you now heartbroken exhausted traumatized frustrated how do i explain what happened to my kids concerns about retribution towards certain minority groups desperate for change yet not optimistic that it will take place as these next days turn to weeks and months

[150:00] i hope that when i look back at this list and reflect on where we as a community in our journey of healing and moving forward that these words will be replaced with words such as love hope safe inclusivity community-led change that this time it was different that we circumvented the politicized issues that have stopped real change in the past and were able to create meaningful people-focused solutions thank you thank you markeisha next uh we have ingrid castro campos gracias one of the city council members community leaders and beloved community members i hope my

[151:00] words i hope that my words honor the suffering of others and the lives we have lost there's a part of me that wishes to address the truth of the horrors that underline such a violent event and yet i'm choosing to sit within the mess of it all and my own suffering i know better that out of chaos and unresolved suffering fragmentation and event-led steps only perpetuate dysfunction and harm we need to come together and examine our filters and biases that prevent us from looking deeply into how we got here in the first place in my experience here and in the country my country of origin acts of violence are rooted in fragmentation that fragmentation might look like numbness a sense of normalcy over social flaws that are against the basic life order in

[152:01] human rights fragmentation might also look as the moral chaos of having misaligned priorities valuing profits revenues egos politicized views inequities over people and humanity i implore you all to move towards action that repairs fragmentation by resensitize those areas of ourselves that are numb we can allow for this mass shooting or any act of hate to become another unfortunate event in the u.s history nor just another act of violence in our town nor the world i implore you all to move towards action that repairs fragmentation by assuming collective responsibility in work at a grassroots level and for legislation that protects the true freedoms of citizens not the freedoms that are sold to us is logical but instead

[153:01] those should be rooted in accordance to the illnesses and strengths of our society we must act assertively and steadily i implore you to move towards action that repairs fragmentation by doing anything and everything within our power your power to close gaps in ineffective systems related to mental health access to resources to meet basic needs and the well-being of community members finally i implore you to move towards action that repairs fragmentation by bringing community together not out of the urgency of the moment but to heal from the long-lasting effects of violence i you we cannot allow for our community to continue to operate from fragmentation we cannot forget that we only have this moment to make things right to each other and those who have left us too

[154:00] soon we cannot do it on our own healing restoring and supporting each other only occurs in community we must and only can move forward from a place of empathy and love rooted action thank you for inviting me and listening to my work thank you thank you ingrid um next we have norma johnson thank you um thank you everyone for bringing us all together and for creating this opportunity for our community um you know there's there's a couple of things that uh i want to talk about and one of them is uh just talking about bringing us together just to acknowledge what it takes

[155:00] for uh for all the departments for all the agencies for all the people uh to come together to create something like this uh the same thing that happened during the tragedy at king super just watching all those components of agencies and individuals coming together under amazing organization to keep us safe so i just wanted to acknowledge that that these things don't just happen that so much has put into them and i and i i give so much thanks for that the other thing i want to speak to is um belonging um you know

[156:00] everything that i've been hearing people talk about this evening it kind of funnels down to belonging who belongs who feels they belong who doesn't feel they belong is at the root of so much you know i'm a storyteller a poet a social justice advocate and facilitator and i have so many i'm in so many conversations about equity and justice and it it always comes down to that it's the everyday things that we experience that create the bigger things in our lives so so one i want to put a reminder out for that and as people have been speaking to that

[157:01] this evening [Music] feeling what they're feeling that's that's all those things that make the bigger stuff those are all the things that count it's always the little things and um it's the little things that make the laws eventually so you know i talk a lot about everyday race and everyday healing and that's something that we are experiencing in this moment and it's something we're going to be experiencing for a long time so i i just want to encourage us to give ourselves permission for that and also along with that belonging is honesty because so much of what has happened in our country has to do with a foundation

[158:02] of dishonesty and honesty is something that we all can grow and evolve in and it changes things because in order to have trust there must be honesty so um you know that belonging for me it's it's been happening in in just those small encounters every day you know i was in another grocery store and yesterday and i was in the meat department and the uh person that waited on me she we just started talking because it was in the air and because we're feeling it i stood there for maybe 15 minutes there was no one else no other customer

[159:00] behind me and we just talked about the feeling of this the grieving and she spoke about how she knew officer talley and how what a kind and beautiful person he was and he affected her life and i stood there holding my package of meat and realized that this was maybe the most important moment i could have that day it's small things so let's not forget those small things the the text messages and emails i got are you okay are you okay are you okay from all across the country and while in some ways it was overwhelming just the idea that people are reaching out just the idea that

[160:02] that nobody knows really what to do with this but they want to know are you okay and probably for the first time over and over again in my responses i use that broken heart emoji because it's heartbreaking so healing takes place every day and in terms of belonging it has to do with recognizing each other recognizing that we are human beings every one of us and some of the responses i've been getting as i walk around town because i walk a lot here in boulder is we're seeing each other

[161:00] and there's an acknowledgement and that's been happening throughout covet it happened to me uh during the the the protests and the horrific murders uh that were happening to black and brown people in our country where all of a sudden i got noticed people that maybe would just walk right by me without seeing me stopped to acknowledge my black body in their space sometimes it takes tragedies for us to look up and see each other but it's always worth it always always always and i just want to share a short piece i

[162:02] wrote that i want to offer to our community to all the families that are affected directly and indirectly it's called surely there is a bridge surely there is the bridge from here to there it is built one segment at a time one step at a time one experience one memory one sharing and pain and loving at a time a lifetime of segments that builds the bridge of relationship of who we are and for each other surely there is a bridge from here to there it's a way we connect remember and cherish those who have touched our lives and where in moments of grace we could become more together than apart

[163:04] more spirit more love more force for good and the beauty of living surely there is a bridge from here to there each step is but a mere glide on the wings of god a journey a voyage a home coming a peace thank you thank you norma next we'll go to um two together adella aguirre and jesus salazar both who assist us as community connectors yeah thank you um my statement will follow in english um

[164:01] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[165:11] before i begin i just want to give my condolences to all the families and friends that have um special connections to the victims of this tragedy and thank you so much for sharing those words of the friends that of these victims they brought tears to my eyes and i just really recognized the how special these people were um my name is born and raised here in boulder this tragedy has impacted our community like never before most of us are conscious about the mass shootings happening around the country but never in my life do i think that this would happen here in boulder um even as i as a young kid growing up here i never second guessed my safety as a community because as a community connector i know that my

[166:01] communities are very strong and resilient um and the next steps from here are not to only heal most importantly but also take action um so that other families and other communities that come across the country and even world i'm never have to experience this pain thank you thank you adela and jesus um next we have lupita montoya hi everybody jesus also has comments oh i'm sorry i apologize adela um jesus please not always thank you uh thank you all for your time and the people who unfortunately you know it's an interesting an interesting time that we're living in uh i'm so seldom

[167:01] bought a resident for 15 years community connector worker grove mobile park coming from bigger city than boulder before we moved here i always stop boulder as a quiet town he and my team that sometimes thought of water as boring uh though as i get older i've had the opportunity to visit other cities and towns across america and events that you turn off your camera because your sound is a little stable and that might help thank you thank you yes as i was saying uh though as i get older and have had the opportunity to visit other cities and towns across america

[168:00] in other towns in colorado my appreciation and love for boulder girls exponentially i grew up going to kings uber's both out 30th and table meso for groceries to pass the time or to ran a movie from the blockbusters inside king soup race before the red bucks chaos to be never when i walked into hear about these situations happened i think such a horrific event would happen in my town the recent change in boulder has caused significant oops i'm sorry but it looks like we've lost adela and jesus um if we get them back in i will come back to jesus in the meantime we will call on lupita montoya thank you mayor weaver um dear bolder community i'm just going to

[169:01] read my statements because i already have done quite a bit of crying i want to make sure that i can get through this i'm speaking today as someone who lives works volunteers shops worships and raises her kids in the city of boulder the tragedy that at king zumba akin supers impacted me deeply as this is my neighborhood grocery store and i was really lucky not to be there during this horrible incident when i when i first heard about it i had just left my youngest child at fairview high for the warm-up before a soccer game against boulder high that afternoon i usually go to king supers to shop and then return to watch the game on monday i decided to go home instead of going shopping to finish some work

[170:00] and then return to the game while at home my child called me to tell me what was happening at king supers and then i have to go and pick him up and we come home and we stay home since then i have felt numb i had cried but now i just simply want a better world the first things that i came to my mind when i heard about an active shooter akin supers was i hope i hope there are no debts and please god do not let it be do not let the shooter be a young person sadly it was again a young person who perpetrated a horrible act we just lived that a week ago

[171:00] in atlanta this is another young person who has seen no other alternative than to cause unspeakable pain to others so my question is what are we doing wrong as a society to produce so many young people who end up committing these sorts of acts on a regular basis now in this country i feel deeply the loss of lives and i have prayed for them as i often pray for people who lose the people that we lose regularly to gun violence into suicide i have a special regard for people lost to suicide a lot of young people are dying that way it is my nature to seek understanding and meaning in life and i would like to think that this horrible

[172:00] act that happened in boulder is an opportunity for us to do better and to do better than to get angry or to be sad i want to ask every member of our community especially the adults how is it that we are contributing to the loss of hope that the young people in this country are experiencing how can we change this terrible path that we're on where younger and younger people are either giving up on life or want to cause harm to innocent others i encourage the city council to continue these talks and lead us into action i see this work on par with the much needed work that we must do to achieve equity and justice in our country thank you for listening thank you lupita

[173:01] next we have nikhil mankikar a community leader and two-time past chair of the human relations commission michiel thank you sam uh first i want to thank uh the mayor weaver and members of city council for uh calling us together tonight and with the invitation i appreciate it uh i'm nikhil boulder manches born and raised in this community this is my home i want to start by giving thanks love and prayers to officer talley and his family to all 10 victims who lost their lives in this tragedy i also want to give my thanks and love and playlist to chief hillard boulder police department all of its officers chill of pelle the county sheriff's department fbi law enforcement agencies district attorney michael dougherty and everyone in the boulder county da's office for the incredible response this week uh to such horrific incidents and uh and the continued response and follow-up

[174:00] going forward uh this this wound and the pain of it uh is is just immense and especially for those of us who who who've grown up in boulder and called us home have lived really long time um it's just it's a lot and uh i'm just thinking of how uh just days before uh this tragedy happened i was uh driving my dad uh right by that king subaru's in table mesa and we were in the neighborhood and uh taking a drive and talking and he uh he just exclaimed 50 euros to me and i was thinking i'm not close to 50 yet what are you talking about and he said 50 years since i came to boulder and he came to boulder 50 years ago and made this his home and all the family's home

[175:01] and we're just talking reflecting on that and uh beautiful bolded community and by beautiful we were not just talking about the mountains and the trails he took us on hiking his kids uh but other beautiful people in in in boulder that all the friends we call it friends and family uh uh as there's the tragedy hit on on monday i think of his uh his best friend who also came here in the 70s who lives right by that king zoopers and walks in that neighborhood and and to that king supers every day um i think of how uh i used to go to school i used to go to lunch doing after school every day at that king supers and uh i'm just glad it was spring break i can only imagine all the young high school students who would have been when this tragedy happened otherwise um looking back i i remember columbine uh and all the memories associated with

[176:02] that uh and the change how it changed people's sense of feeling unsafe just unsafe doing something you do every day going to school um and how that stayed with us since and i just had instantly recalled the you know having metal detectors installed at the high school up there and how it changed all their lives not only as students but as we grow up um and then i think of people being afraid and uncomfortable to go see a movie with friends after the loyal theater tragedy in 2012. and the list goes on and now this uh as the events of days ago unfolded i thought of all of this i thought of as i watched the events unfold on the news i thought of friends people i've worked with childhood friends and in the boulder police department you know messaging them

[177:01] contacting them to see if they were safe friends who live nearby and table mesa and us calling each other to check if we're safe um my uh my mom's oldest friend going back to college lives in atlanta and they were just talking about the tragedy and hate crimes in atlanta only that she was facing in her own community only days before and she was shocked to tune on the news and see this in boulder um and the many friends from outside boulder and outside the state who've messaged and connected that day and in these days since that have followed to show they feel the pain and showing they care about us and our community we do this because we genuinely genuinely saw we do this because we genuinely care for each other as friends as human beings and as a community and to me that's the path forward but now there's no easy answers and

[178:01] there's no easy fix for this the wounds and pain of what our bolder community is going through is something we will be going through for a long time to come no doubt about it but that connection that we have to each other that is the path forward our strength and resiliency has a border community doesn't just come from laws politicians or political bodies clearly it comes from each and every one of us everyday people who make up make up the city it is and the community it is that we call home so please be kind to each other be gentle with each other take time for one another careful each other that's what we can do right now and that's what we have to do always so love that enables it and may peace be upon us thank you for the opportunity to

[179:00] speak thank you nikhil next we have john tayer president and ceo of the boulder chamber of commerce i want to give john and the chamber a shout out for having lit the boulders star um as soon as the tragedy struck so john well let's start by thanking the city also for the partnership in uh the lighting the boulder star um and i'll say that you know there's been so many profound statements of grief tonight so well articulatedly stated words of comfort um and there are commitments to healing and building back stronger i can't begin to try to match that and i won't um but i just will say that the boulder chamber welcomes all of those sentiments um as a testament to the unity and strength and resilience of our community um you mentioned the boulders star

[180:02] mayor weaver and those are the very sentiments that we hope that the boulder lighting of the boulder star reflects and we intend to have that lit through the next 10 preceding days in honor of the 10 victims that we that we lost um so that will be lit through monday but there's something else that we want to convey and it oftentimes gets lost in the reflection on uh such a terrible act of violence and and that is to thank you um we want to first thank um as the boulder chamber and the boulder business community uh those first responders who many have acknowledged tonight um but it comes right front and center to all of us how they put their lives on the line um every day um and we see that in fact um terribly um it can come to

[181:01] um a death of a law enforce a heroic law enforcement officer like officer talley and we thank our law our first responders every day for their protection we also thank our elected leaders um for their help in making sense of this tragic incident and for what i know are their commitments to work on the issues that are going to help avoid these types of incidents in the future we heard a number of commitments along those lines and then also i want to thank and on behalf of the chamber of the residents who have reached out and demonstrated their caring and their emotional support to the victims of this tragic incident um and then finally um i just a thought a sentiment from our end and it's not lost on us that this incident occurred at a local business

[182:00] um and it's a business like any others that many of us frequent every day and provide critical services so too often we take those services um that our local businesses offer and the workforce that provides those services for granted and we we just can't do that so let's take this experience as a reminder of the humanity of all we encounter in our daily activities and the businesses that serve our needs thank you sam thank you john um next we will go to kelly mcgannon kelly is the regional director of corporate affairs for kroger western region and kroger owns king super kelly hi good evening sam i'm sorry i'm only joining by audio because i am just now leaving one of our counseling sites in boulder but

[183:00] first thank you to the council and for your leadership i have really enjoyed hearing everybody's comments tonight i think the first thing i will share with you is we're heartbroken and i will try and be as it was personal for us our associates are like our family and our tenure is deep and boulder has always been home for king supers it is a place where the community has supported us been a part of what we do and inspired so many of our actions and has led us on this journey for us for zero hunger zero waste that was really inspired by when we first started looking at plastic bags in boulder i wouldn't tell you that it's personal because it's i never thought when i left college that i was going to work for a grocery store and i never thought that i

[184:01] would stay here for 25 years and it would be my only career or at least the only career that i hope i have but it's because of our people and anybody can sell groceries but no it's not always about the people we're in the people business we meet our associates we meet our community and i think for far too long we always felt like this was going to happen someplace else i have loved to hear everybody's comments and about how we heal and how we come together and how we come back better and i think somebody said previously that it's for them it's really about in the worst of times you see the best of people and we have absolutely seen that so here i guess what i want you to know at the end of the day is this is not easy i i never thought that this would happen at a king supers maybe i was just being naive or it was

[185:00] pure optimism but i didn't see it happening and i have a son who was a sophomore at cu boulder we frequented that store terry had become a friend of mine and she always said she was going to call me if she ever saw my son misbehaving so it's just heartbreaking because we know them we know their names and it's it's part of the fabric of our community i think mayor what we want everybody to know and what we are committed to doing is supporting our community and supporting our associates and i think the first place we have to start is supporting the mental health of our associates through this really difficult time so our efforts the last two days have been focused on them making sure we provide them the resources they need the access to mental health that they need and helping them to think about how they move forward i don't know how and when the store reopens and i don't know what that looks like because it's a day we never thought

[186:01] would come but i know that we will do it with the council support and the community support i think those are decisions we will have to make together and i think what gives us all comfort is to know we're not in it alone i sat here and listened to all of these comments and i will tell you the fifth grader probably brought the most tears to my eyes because it's so sad to me that we live in a world that our children know these types of things exist and they practice drills and schools to prevent them and to prevent the tragedies but together we'll come back stronger we're committed we're committed to our associates to our customers and the community i think um the best place we can start is to help healing give people access to the mental health work resources that they need and then partner with each of you to find out what's best for the community and how we come back and support each other so

[187:02] thank you thank you for letting me participate and i truly feel like it was a gift that i got to hear all the feedback from so many of our elected officials and community leaders that are committed to this and we're better together all of us and i just know that it's a bright future so thanks for letting me participate and i'm sorry if i had technical difficulties before but it was really a gift just to hear everybody else's feedback so thanks for letting me be there and thanks for having such brave uh first responders because it could have been far more tragic so we're grateful and there i will turn it back to you thank you kelly um next we'll turn to judith landsman she's the chair of the naacp equal opportunity freedom fund committee judith yes thank you mayor and city council members

[188:01] thank you council person erin brockett for inviting the naacp boulder county to this session president annette james was unable to attend so i am honored to speak on behalf of the branch as chair of economic opportunity freedom fund and as a member of the criminal justice system i mean criminal not of the system of the criminal justice committee we are an inclusive organization as the naacp has been since its founding united in our mission to eliminate race-based and anti-black discrimination and promote the equal rights of all persons we thank d.a dougherty and respect his resolve for justice in all forms and in this situation in particular we value our police chief maris harold and the humanity she shows and continues to show for the victims of this tragedy we encourage our leaders to work towards

[189:01] responsible gun legislation banning assault weapons in boulder and in the state many of us many of us in the branch including myself are long time boulderites we went through columbine we went through aurora the aurora movie theater shooting and now table mesa in our own backyard we are familiar with the store the location and the victims actually suzanne fountain was my insurance agent enough already we do not forget we applaud the emphasis on greater mental health initiatives in our county i did look up larimer county they have their inaugural 1 million dollars for for mental health and i i hope that boulder county uh follows suit

[190:02] we must heal and take action together in unity and in love i would like to read a poem by alan muller when all that's left is love when i die if you need to weep cry for someone walking the street beside you you can love me most by letting hands touched hands and souls touch souls you can love me most by sharing your goodness and multiplying your acts of kindness you can love me most by letting me live in your eyes and not on your mind and when you say prayers for me remember love doesn't die people do so when all that's left of me is love give me away

[191:00] boulder county naac branch mourns these victims and we mourn for our community i've lived here a long time i've raised six children here and this is difficult it's unfortunately it's a shock but it's not a surprise so thank you for this session and for the commitments that i hear for change thank you thank you judith um next we have suzanne jones the former mayor of boulder i know it's been a long evening thank you all for hanging in there i join you as a former mayor and a long time community member and like all of you i'm heartbroken i'm devastated and like so many of the other folks that have spoken i i'm struggling with deep sadness and also outrage and anger

[192:01] over the senseless loss of 10 vibrant and wonderful community members and so i want to thank this city council for bringing us together it is so important that we gather so we can grieve together with the families who lost who lost loved ones join them in celebrating the lives of these beloved individuals so we can share our gratitude to the police boulder police department and to express our thanks for the outpouring of aid we saw from officers from all over the region so we can collectively honor the ultimate sacrifice of officer cali who gave us his life to protect ours so we can hold close the many survivors and the front line grocery workers who experience such trauma and mindless evil and so we can mourn the the rending of our the fabric of our civic well-being and our collective feeling of loss and at times like this i am more grateful

[193:01] than ever to be a part of this wonderful community i slipped out during this event to run downtown to the candlelight vigil just because i needed to feel the energy and love of community and though it was hard to capture it on zoom i have to say it was a very powerful and palpable gathering um a real coming together to support the victims family but also to support each other and to try to begin healing together it's really clear that this is a loss for everyone for our community but also for our state and and for our country and i think we gain strength as a community knowing that we can all lean on each other for support during the time of mourning and coming together to heal but also leaning on each other for inspiration and conviction when it's time to get back to work building a better future and we have got to build a better future as has been noted we live in a country where shootings and mass shootings are

[194:01] happening so often and well i feel like we grieve each one when it happens here in our hometown at our local grocery store to our friends and neighbors there is no looking away and we can't deny the reality of of who we are as a society and there's just nothing normal or acceptable about the cycle of violence and the depth of division in our country and it has got to change now i was on city council with many of you when in response to the parkland mass shooting we passed our city's assault weapons ban and we didn't do it because we thought it was the answer but it was an important step it was one that we could take and we felt compelled to take even though it was insufficient and now we need to channel the pain we're feeling into doing more and i'll just note that this community and this council is made up of problem solvers of change makers and i'd say we are people that don't settle for things as they are

[195:00] but keep working to change things as they should be and i want to thank the members of our state delegation and our federal delegation who spoke tonight for being willing to be being willing to join with us in seeking solutions passing policies doing what we need to do at the local level the state level national level to pursue gun reform and to bring change to this country so tonight we're grieving as we should but let's also commit to action and honor the lives of our 10 fellow community members by coming together in the days ahead to demand and create that better future thank you thank you very much suzanne um next we have anna karina casas ibarra one of our

[196:56] [Music]

[197:38] i'm gonna say it in english now when i got in touch with my my community um with my neighbors the first thing that they told me was please um just make sure you express your most sincere condolences to the families of the victims and just let them know that as a community we're grieving

[198:01] with them [Music] my community we are not strangers to fear or to the sense of lust of security or to the pain but we know that as a community as a whole community or bolder community we are going to overcome this including the sense of loss of security but we also want to see from our legislators action not only words but actions either by by measures of gun control or or more funding for mental health and um yeah and you know like as a community there's that sense of lust of of security another wave of that because most of us go to the grocery store at king supers and

[199:01] we go there with our children so just knowing that these things now can happen anywhere everywhere at any time that has come like that has brought a huge wave of fear in the community so please um we want to see action for change thank you thank you anna next we have marty moore executive director of out boulder county marty thank you mayor weaver thank you council my name is marty my pronouns are she her and hers tonight i'm here bringing the love and support of the staff and the board of out boulder county albor county is here for anyone who needs support as in the conversation around mental health on our website outboulder.org you will find a mental health directory that is

[200:00] inclusive of lgbtq community members if someone on this call has a loved one or is a person in the lgbtq community who's struggling the immediate referral i would give is to umbrella collective or queer asterix like most of you on monday afternoon the text messages started coming in one after another the first one there's an active shooter are you home where are you i quickly messaged juan an employee who was working from home and king super's table mesa his grocery store luckily he was home i then messaged detective marples from the boulder pd who has been a lifeline for our community in providing safety he was unable to respond to until the following day when the name of the shooter became public the following morning the first

[201:01] message i sent was to tracy from the islamic center who spoke earlier tonight because it's obvious that that or that that muslims are going to be the next ones under attack tracy and i built our relationship when the lgbtq community the jewish community and the queers um were on the list of organizations that were being attacked so that's a a relationship that we've built in a time of trouble i um one of the things that norma spoke about it and i heard zan in particular um speak about it is connections and being at the vigil tonight and feeling that connection and you know boulders had its share from the fires to the pandemic to now this tremendous loss

[202:01] and we've done it under the pandemic and so our normal ways of connecting with people haven't been there and i think that that has made it a lot harder in the in these moments um i wasn't going to go down the road of mental health because i i want us to make sure you know to honor and i you know the ripples of all of this people are this is a small community and people are connected if you didn't know them the the people who were were killed directly you know somebody who knows the boyfriend of somebody who was killed or the child if somebody was killed and so that was uh today that was those were the messages i was getting um and so that's hard and i wasn't going to go down the the road of coming with an agenda but i think the the public officials who spoke kind of opened that door and there had been conversations

[203:00] um comments since then around mental health and i can tell you that there are not enough mental health resources in this town i have spent uh in the last couple of weeks we've had um several losses in the lgbtq community um we have received many calls from people in need and who are on the edge um that was prior to the shooting so i can only imagine now what that looks like i gave you referrals those people are all booked there are no medicaid slots in this town you can walk down a block and there'll be five therapists and maybe one takes medicaid we have some real issues with mental health and i'm not speaking about the shooter because i don't know anything but what i'm telling you is the impact of what has happened um is another layer of tragedy

[204:02] that is happening to community members in in boulder county tonight was the first that i have heard that there's talk about uh a mental health uh thing that we judy talked about uh the tax i will say that i'm pretty sure an lgbtq community member hasn't been brought to that table to have a conversation about what that would look like i don't know that the spanish-speaking community has brought to that table so i will make sure and do everything that those of us who in in government they call prioritized populations um or marginalized if they slip need to be part of building whatever that is because we are left out in the conversations around mental health um so i will i will make do the best to make sure that those are services that that everybody because if we can all reach them they'll be the best services so i want to thank city council for all the work that you do

[205:01] and for convening this my heart is broken for boulder and my heart is broken for the families and friends and i do want to give up i'm so proud of michael dougherty we are so lucky to have him as our district attorney um and chief harold's realness in sharing the news with us um i think was sad for the nation so thank you all thank you marty next we have anna seeger um hello my name is emma seeger i'm a volunteer with mom's demand action i would like to start by setting my condolences to the families of the victims may they rest in peace after the king supers massacre my kids elementary school sent us guidance on how to talk to kids about the shooting they said i'm supposed to emphasize that my kids are safe at school how am i supposed to do that i can't lie to my kids

[206:01] they aren't safe at school i'm not safe at work or at the grocery store no one america is safe as long as this country continues to put profits and the sex success of the nra and the gun industry of of human lives we've been doing nothing about gun safety for 30 years and massacres and the fear they generate continue to drive record gun sales weapons of war designed for hunting and killing humans don't belong in civil society if any of our state or national politicians are still listening on this call please take strong action and enact a national or state assault weapon ban enact universal background checks and immunity for gun manufacturers and ensure that people with a history of domestic violence or violent crimes can never own a gun please do something besides saying i should lie to my kids and tell them they're safe thank you

[207:01] thank you hannah next we have dinesh kumar karki one of our community connectors hello good evening everybody i'm from nepali american community known as asian american first of all i would like to express my deepest condolence to all the victims family and big salute to brave police officer who sacrificed his life for the uh for the community members what happening in border will be remembered as a black day in the history let's hope it won't be happening again like everyone else my community also sad scared and feeling secret after this incident recently hazy and american people were attracted by the other people on the basis of origin and faith by the law everybody has a right to live

[208:02] work and survive in this country but why this happening frequently is need to be noted i'm from country of the lord buddha we we are peaceful people and once peace all over the world we don't want to see violence boulder known as peaceful city and and we want it to be peaceful forever make everyone feel safe here this kind of incident happening across the country we have questions on our head why the lord give to permission to carry gun with all the people we strongly demand that the law on carrying gun need to be changed which stops us criminal activities in our communities will always be together to keep peace to bowler thanks you all thank you thank you dinesh next we have

[209:00] matthew califano a member of the city's beverage licensing authority one of the shooting victims was also a member of the beverage licensing authority matthew thank you mayor my name is matthew califano and i'm a member on the beverages licensing authority for the city as was as the mayor said one of the victims of monday night's tragedy kevin mahoney i personally feel honored to have known and worked with him i wanted to share some testimony and condolences from the board members staff and council from member mike absalom he was a pillar of our community he was compassionate about the people and establishments in the city of boulder taught me so much about how to navigate the colorado liquor code and the impacts we can have on our licensed establishments he truly cared about his responsibility to care for the safety of our community he will never be forgotten

[210:01] remember michael friesen kevin always had a smile on his face and treated everyone with respect he brought his business accumulate to the meetings and wasn't afraid to ask hard questions i appreciated that remember alyssa lundgren we were blessed to have served beside him an honor to have known him he was an asset to our board and our community my favorite thing about him was how devoted he was to his family how proud he was when he spoke about his daughter he was sharp and inquisitive fair and kind kevin would share stories of his daughter and her adventures he would light up talking about his family that was maybe my favorite thing about him how clearly devoted he was to his family how proud he was when he spoke about his daughter our board was bettered by his insights opinion and energy and this is from our staff and our council kevin had a great sense of humor kevin was tough but fair

[211:00] his end goal was to help new businesses he was wanted or he wanted them to be run well too kevin took his responsibility as a member of the beverage licensing authority very seriously it was our great honor to know him kevin was dedicated and kind and thoughtful he was careful to protect the interest of the boulder community kevin was one hell of a nice guy and will be sorely missed by his friends colleagues on the bla and on staff his family has lost a great man the community has lost an incredible contributor we mourn for his family and all the families of all 10 victims thank you so much thank you matthew next we have stephanie rudy who's a victims advocate for the boulder police department thank you for giving me the opportunity to share our story um i'm a victim advocate with the boulder police department if you don't know what that

[212:00] is we are a group of volunteers who are on call 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days of the year at the request of police officers we respond to the scene when there is trauma and there are victims who need assistance it could be suicides it could be unattended deaths it could be bank robberies it could be drug overdoses it could be just about anything we've been working since the shooting to develop the best program to help the victims and their families we're really very thankful for the boulder police department and all of the statewide agencies who have come together to provide assistance and support unfortunately this has happened too many times in colorado but fortunately the support and advice that we're able to get from those other agencies who have been through this before has been invaluable i want to share with you what we are doing now for the families and for the victims um as of yesterday every family every

[213:01] family has been given a support team there are three people on the support team one person is a victim advocate with the boulder police department we're responsible for working with their immediate needs do they want grief counseling we'll get that for them do they need information on mortuaries in town we can get that for them do they need to get some information on how to talk to their children we can get that for them the second person on the team is a victim advocate with the da's office that person will be responsible for providing information on the suspect information on what is happening with the subs the suspect and information as the trial goes along that person will be with them from yesterday until the trial is over so

[214:00] they are responsible for them for probably a very long time the third person on the team is a public information officer for the family not many of these families have had much information in dealing with the media some of the families want a buffer some of the families want information on how to um present their loved ones to the press so that people will get a good um just a good idea of who their loved one was and so the public information officer is there to help them do that the public information officer will also be with them from yesterday until the trial is over because unfortunately we believe that the media will be here from yesterday until the trial is over um so those three people will be in touch with them

[215:00] almost constantly um providing anything that they need also um we are providing funeral assistance if they need that we are providing grease grief counseling if they need that and we are providing plane transportation and hotels in town for families who are coming into town on the public side on the victim side um monday night there were a group of us who were at the police department and they were bringing in busloads of people from king supers the buses included the employees the shoppers the people who were maybe in the parking lot but anybody who was on the scene when the shooting happened they were coming to the police department and the buses in order to interview the police officers because of the number of people they were there for a while and so we had an opportunity to sit with them we had an opportunity to listen to them

[216:01] they had amazing stories and we had an opportunity to understand what they might need the police officers who are interviewing them uh are letting us know if they talk to people that they think need more services if they're talking to people that they think need counseling and as the information comes back to us we are calling them and trying to provide what they need in addition we have set up an assistance office the assistance office is at the via office at 2855 63rd street anybody who is a witness a victim is welcome to come into the office we can provide counselors there for them we can provide referrals for them we hope that we can provide anything that they need the assistance office is open from ten to seven um there's a kind of a for instance um

[217:01] you know as the employees were leaving the store and as the shoppers were leaving the store they were leaving generally in a hurry um their cars are still at the store um there were employees who left without their purse their purses are still at the store they may not have a cell phone they may need a cell phone so we will provide a temporary cell phone but it's that kind of thing that they're coming in to the assistant's office and asking for help with and it's that kind of thing that we're being able to provide for them meanwhile i just want everybody to remember and sometimes we forget that the police are working this situation while they're also dealing with their own grief there has not been a police officer lost in this town since 1995 and it has been devastating i have watched what's going on at the police department it has been devastating so please just be sensitive to that a lot of people are asking us about contributions

[218:00] for victims and the families the fallen officer fund will assist the family of officer talley the colorado healing fund supports the needs of the victims the families and the community and the colorado organization for victim assistance has been so helpful to us in helping us get organized quickly and to provide support and resources so all of you if you know of anybody who was at the scene who perhaps hasn't talked to anybody there were people we have heard who escaped through the back door um and maybe they haven't been in contact with anybody if you know of anybody if you hear of anybody please let us know because we need to hear their story and we need to provide them with any services that they need so thank you very much stephanie thank you for that and thank you for your service um with that we are done with the public testimony for tonight and we'll bring it back to

[219:01] council i will begin briefly by saying um it is just an amazing community that we are part of um hearing from all the people who have spoken tonight is incredibly moving much of it's incredibly sad but i i have to say that it is just um breathtaking how committed um our residents are and how much people love their community which is not the place it's the people so with that i'm going to ask council members um to please raise their hands and i'll call on them i know that after hearing what we heard um it's hard to follow but i think that just like our um state and federal legislators spoke that we owe it to our community to speak to them about what we've heard what we hope for what we intend to do

[220:00] going forward so council members thank you for being willing to speak and i'll call on bob thanks tim first i want to start with um three thank yous um first i want to thank all the police officers in our community um if any of you are listening tonight i know that each one of you knows that by protecting us from harm you expose yourself to harm and any one of you could have been officer tally on monday second thank you i want to extend this to you sam over the last 48 hours you've done as proud you've spoken um to the president of the united states you've spoken to national international press you've kept uh the community and the world informed and i am very proud of you and i thank you so much for representing um our city in our city council

[221:02] finally i want to thank the community members who courageously spoke this evening well tonight has been painful um it's also been the most beautiful and meaningful city council meeting that i have ever attended so i want to thank everyone for sharing deeply with us we heard tonight from more than 40 people from faith leaders from federal and state representatives from community members and from friends and neighbors of those taken from us on monday afternoon nothing i could say now would be as eloquent or as moving or as intimate as what we have already heard this evening so let me just say what i heard this evening tonight i heard fear i heard sadness i heard anger but most importantly tonight i heard hope i don't know maybe it's too soon to talk about hope

[222:00] hope has to be genuine and hope can't be forced and hope takes his time but i can't forget the most important lesson taught to us by our long-serving and recently retired city manager jim brodigam jane taught us that hope is not optional hope is not optional i think the word hope is sometimes misunderstood hope is not wishfulness hope is not the prayer of those who have no other place to turn hope is not the last desperate grasp of helplessness instead i think that hope is the real realizable promise of a better future hope has a plan hope can be implemented and when the aims of hope are achieved hope turns to joy tonight i believe that we have reason for hope we just heard those reasons

[223:02] tonight we heard our faith leaders remind us that the pain of life is temporary tonight we heard our federal and state representatives promise that they will forever ban the instruments of death that were used to kill our neighbors on monday afternoon tonight we heard community members commit to help each other through one of the most horrific tragedies our town has ever borne and tonight i look forward to hearing my from my council members my colleagues who lead this city to the best of their abilities with concern compassion and dedication that's what jane brodigan meant by hope hope is love hope is kindness hope is sharing hope is healing hope makes us stronger hope makes us better as jane taught us hope is not optional when the fear and the sadness

[224:01] and the anger subside over the coming days and weeks and months what will be left is hope and on the foundation of that hope we will build our community thank you thank you bob mark thank you sam uh i want to thank everyone who spoke this evening um there was a great deal of eloquence there was a great deal of passion uh and i hope we can take it all to heart um we heard many specific policy suggestions this evening and i'm not going to discuss those um we know what has to be done uh we simply have to have the collective will to do it um tonight i am simply going to add a brief personal comment um like so many of us i've been trying to get my head around the events of monday

[225:01] i have found myself consumed by anger and rage at this assault on our community and our people at the unfairness and capriciousness of the act at the sheer mind-numbing evil of it in in my own efforts to move past these emotions i actually found myself coming back to a couple of lines from the welsh poet dylan thomas he wrote the lovers be lost love shall not and death shall have no dominion and as i thought about it for me that provided the basis for moving forward to remember the fallen with love and appreciation to recognize and celebrate the acts of compassion and heroism we saw on that day particularly those of officer talley who died in the service of the community

[226:00] he had sworn to protect and who gave what lincoln described as the last full measure of devotion to our community and finally to act in such a way as to show the world that in this city in our city death shall never have dominion that we will survive we will persevere and we will rise thank you thank you mark mary denny stong nevin stanisic ricky olds trellona bartoque suzanne fountain terry lyker kevin mahoney lynn murray

[227:00] and jody waters may they rest in peace and my condolences go out to their families and loved ones i have a lot of appreciation for a lot of what was said tonight it was just i don't have any other word for it but beautiful um and i heard a lot of references to bridges um bridges um you know about the fragmentation how how do you mend fragmentation you mend it with a bridge how do you provide access to resources and basic needs you do that with bridges and then norma outright said it surely there is a bridge

[228:00] and it made me think of a quote by glory gloria and saldua which is coming traveler there are no bridges we build them as we go and so i hope that as we build these bridges over these treacherous waters of this tragic event as we go to places we've never been to and we never thought that we would have to go to that we do this together and that for a moment and perhaps even longer we put aside our differences and work together to first of all help these families through

[229:01] this horrible horrible event and what they must be feeling and then our community and then to do something about this and yes it involves gun reform but it also involves providing mental health services it involves providing people with the basic needs it involves addressing the fragmentation and so it's not just one thing it's many things and we have to do those little everyday things that norma mentioned that will provide us some healing that's all i have thank you thank you mary aaron well it's been an extraordinary evening listening to all of our community members incredible

[230:00] moving testimony it's in tears multiple times and i can only say thank you to everyone who came and shared their thoughts um obviously this is an incredibly difficult time i'll just say a few words um i need to start by thinking um the um officer eric talley uh for his bravery and for his ultimate sacrifice uh we owe him a debt that we can never repay and so i'm just incredibly grateful uh to him and to the entire boulder police department and who put themselves in harm's way um on monday and many other days to protect our community and to thank all the other first responders um the older fire department and then from departments all across the front range who came to our aid and thank you so much for your assistance and then i offer my very sincerest condolences um to the families and friends and loved ones

[231:02] of the people that we lost on monday we grieve for you and we mourn for you and we stand with you in this incredibly difficult time and then i'll just say that that i pledge to do what is within my power to work on the underlying problems in our society on advancing mental health support and gun violence prevention working with our state and federal leaders to do whatever we can on these incredibly difficult problems that result in such horrific acts so that's that's my pledge to the community thank you everyone and good night thank you aaron next we have nearby and then rachel nearby thanks sam um i guess i want to start out on more of a personal note to our first headquarters and

[232:01] i just want to say as a fellow first responder my heart goes out to each and every one of you in a very sincere deep way i understand minimally but you're going through nowhere close to what you've experienced and i know that it can take a toll i know that this past year with the unrest in america and our community has probably taken a big toll as well and so please know from the bottom of my heart and my husband's heart who's in the military um we thank you so deeply for your service um i know you've not probably always seen it from members of the community or across our nation we truly love and appreciate you and thank you so much for your service so i'm pleased to know that there are many many of us who support you uh i would like to offer my heartfelt

[233:00] sincere um heartbreak for for the community members who had to go for this for the trauma that you're experiencing and please know that i think our community stands with you your counsel stands with you our first um responders are not alone and many of us um are keeping you in our thoughts so uh thank you for for the beautiful sentiment tonight it was heard and we appreciate everybody so i can't say much more that was better than what was spoken i think today and um we just we thank you all and thanks for being a part of our community thank you nearby uh rachel and then i'll come back to mary and then adam rachel thanks i want to start by thanking everyone who came and shared their stories and feelings tonight it was very powerful

[234:00] i also want to thank chris maschuk our interim city manager for all the work he's done this week he has been interim city manager a very hard time and i appreciate how well he has risen to the occasion i also want to thank our first responders and especially officer tally who laid down his life for our community and for our lives to debt that we will never be able to repay and i want to express my deepest sympathies to the victims and to the survivors of monday's tragedy the whole community feels your loss and grieves with you we will never forget your loved ones and we will do everything we can to support you all listening to the comments from our speakers tonight the sorrow throughout our community is palpable and overwhelming as a resident of self-older myself it has been my experience too and my heart goes out to everyone in our community who is suffering it has been my experience that we best

[235:01] honor victims of gun violence with action we have many societal ills that we need to fix to prevent acts of violence and atrocities but in terms of gun violence we do necessarily have to include a focus on the guns um something that nikhil mankikar said tonight really resonated for me that gun violence steadily erodes our feeling of being safe in this world and in our community we need to heal as a community and we need to create a world in which we can feel safe new zealand's prime minister jacinda adern announced only five days after a mass shooting in new zealand that new zealand would be in semi-automatic weapons assault rifles and high-capacity magazines jacinda adern met the moment we as a city council cannot meet this moment alone so i am asking for colorado elected officials to meet this moment with us as new zealand's prime minister did i am looking for unequivocal

[236:01] commitments from state elected officials to change the law so i'm asking for boulder state legislators and our governor to commit to three changes passed during this session number one we need a statewide ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines that cannot be deferred to federal government action of course we all hope that the federal government will take action but state lawmakers cannot count on that number two we need the state to repeal the state preemption law and number three we need to expand the list of prohibited firearm purchasers to include those with violent misdemeanor histories that change alone would have prevented the shooter who murdered 10 of our community members from purchasing his weapons you will honor victims if you meet this moment i am begging you to do so please be brave thank you rachel mary back to you for an addendum yes and with my deepest apologies to the

[237:00] family of eric talley um he was at the top of my list and i was gonna go back and i forgot to do that quite honestly so um with all due respect um my apologies and i extend my condolences to the family of eric talley this afternoon i visited the memorial at police headquarters and it was there were a lot of people there more flowers than you could ever think of and it was very very moving and very personal because you knew it was his vehicle you knew that he had been there so i just wanted to mention his name as well and thank him for his service and his family for his service thank you mary adam

[238:00] thank you sam um i will start by marrying a lot of what my fellow council members have said thank you to all the speakers who spoke tonight it was truly touching uh thank you to all the first responders and i my deepest condolences to the victims and their families there is no excuse for this um and there never will be uh i wanted to share briefly since i'm the youngest person on council i'm gonna fill my role uh and speak for the younger generation um what it's like to grow up in a society plagued by gun violence so my first sort of memories are um stop drop and roll that's what we were taught in school and that's become run hide fight

[239:02] every single experience in my life has been pierced by gun violence on one level or another and i'm the generation that learned how to hide in their classroom turn off the lights lock the doors and that that just is a through line in the last 30 years um more personally i know someone who was shot in the aurora theater shooting and he was one of my very good bouncer friends um luckily he's still with us but that has affected him and will for the rest of his life um what's interesting to me is when i hear our elected officials speak and we see these news conferences after these events very frequently i hear the exact same things the only things that change are the

[240:02] the date that it happened the place that it happened and the list of victims everything else is exactly the same no action really happens it could be the same thing you know at this point i could probably recite it myself what is said at these news conferences and what is said is truthful and it is meaningful and it is important but it doesn't drive action and that's what we need at this moment um sorry if her struggling through this a little bit but this you know the one thing i will say that i hear at these conferences that i don't agree with is we can't allow this to be the normal well as someone who grew up

[241:00] seeing this my entire life this is normal the job is to change it away from being normal right now there's very few things that are more american or more coloradan than being a victim of gun violence and that is the normal right now and that has to change i understand why people don't want to accept that but it has to change and i can guarantee you as a member of the generation and future generations that have grown up with this violence if this will change it is inevitable and anyone who stands in the way is just fighting time and i don't know if we have the elected officials who are going to do it now but this generation is now coming into power and this generation will not stand for

[242:01] this and whatever changes need to be made they will be made and that is my promise so it's time to either lead join with us or get out of the way because it's going to happen thank you so much for everybody who spoke tonight again this has really really been a tough situation and on one light note when i went to the memorials i got to first i got to hug my first stranger in over a year and that is one of the most meaningful experiences i've ever had in my life and i never thought that would be the case so there's a lot of hope out there but the inevitable is coming so be prepared for it thank you adam juni

[243:02] thank you sam um following adam's footsteps is very very difficult because i can hear the pain in his heart which is very painful as another human being just to hear that as well i just want to say first my condolences to the families of the victims and the survivors i am deeply saddened by the atrecious acts that took place on monday march 21st 2021 i also let you know that i am deeply grateful and inspired by the bravery of the survivors i am grateful for the bravery of officer tali for laying down his life and service of his fellow men and woman

[244:00] there is no greater love also out of this tragedy i feel the dedication of city staff and leadership ultimately i am grateful and proud to be a member of the boulder city council i am proud to be a community member and boulder i am hopeful that voter is and will remain that bright star because we as a people are resilient and we will overcome this evil that we collectively experience on monday 21st of march 2021 and to finish i want to say to the families of all the victims of denny stone

[245:01] nevin stennis zeke ricky oates trollano bart koviak terry liquor suzanne fountain kevin mahoney lena murray jody waters and officer eric talley today i'm one with you tomorrow i pledge with the rest of my colleagues to fight and advocate for change around gun reform thank you thank you junior um so i want to say thank you to our community again for showing up tonight and sharing your emotions um it is a step that was needed it's needed by me it's needed by our council

[246:01] it's needed by our staff and our whole community so thank you thank you for sharing um and i want to say i'm sorry and who i'm sorry to is the younger generation we'll start with adam on down anyone who has grown up having to learn those skills to survive in a school deserves an apology from all of us who are older we have failed we have failed in vision we have failed in willpower we have failed in execution and it is time to stop failing on this subject we owe it to the younger people in our community to fix this problem which is corrosive it is deadly and is evil

[247:00] and we must take the weapons of human destruction out of the hands of people who are not fit to use them and that is almost everyone but we need to we need to step up to the challenge this means us this means us pressing our legislators and this means us telling them that if you're afraid of losing your job that's not what you should be afraid of think of all the people who were afraid of being shot to death that's fear losing your job is not losing your life and so i am sorry to all the younger people who have had to grow up this way in our country and our city we have work to do and your testimony tonight has redoubled my commitment to that work and i hope

[248:01] it's redoubled the commitment of people who run our state and our country i want to go back to what bob said hope is what we need to be able to do that work we have to believe that with our commitment and with our passion with our vision with our integrity that we can make change and it takes hope to believe that you can make that change even in the face of the polarized mess that we have in washington we have to have hope and boulder is a place that has always been hopeful since i've lived here we've come through the many fires and floods there have been other killings and tragedies the boulder has always picked itself up looked each other in the eye acknowledged the sadness and the grief

[249:01] and move forward and that's what we need to do now i don't have a lot of words to add so i'm going to close with the way i closed at the press conference on mond on tuesday about the events on monday boulder's a city full of giving and resilient people and we will help each other heal and recover from this tragedy boulder is also an active and energetic community we will put our energy to use in repairing the civic fabric which has been torn boulder is a thoughtful and visionary community and we will work together to build a future in which tragedies like this live in a distant and unimaginable past but for now we will grieve and console one another and remember the ten precious souls that we lost on monday

[250:04] and with that i will bring this meeting of the boulder city council to a close and thank you all so much for sharing your time with us everyone have a good night and everyone [Music]

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