By now we've all read about the young Aurora, Colorado couple who had just moved to town and made the fateful decision to take their two young children to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises. Many have gotten in their judgy comments about whether two young children should have been in the theater that night. And now the father, Jamie Rohrs, is getting a drubbing for leaving his family in the theater as he escaped and ended up driving away from the carnage, only coming back once his girlfriend, Patricia Legarreta, called him. Commenters are even telling Patricia to leave the father of her children, saying he will never be there to protect her. Of all the judgmental nonsense people can spout, this is certainly some of the most ignorant.
When the shooting started, Jamie Rohrs yelled to his girlfriend, Patricia, to get on the ground. He then says he threw Patricia's daughter, 4-year-old Azeria, to the floor. He assumed his fiancee had their son, 4-month-old Ethan. At this point, the two got separated. The theater was absolute madness of people crushing over each other to escape in darkness and also the blinding and suffocating tear gas or some other chemical. Said Rohrs:
People are running all over. I'm tripping and falling. I don't know if I laid [Ethan] down or sat him down. I'm wondering maybe there's more of them. [I'm thinking] 'He's crying and they're going to come get me.' I look up to see if I can run. I'm ducking, dodging, turning left, turning right. ... Every time you hear a gun shot, it's like 'Oh, I'm dead.' I'm just disoriented after I put him down.
Here's where people start to get judgy. Why would Rohrs put his son down? A lot of people are assuming he put him down so he could more easily make a run for it. Could it also not be that with bullets flying he thought his son should be closer to the ground?
Now Rohrs got out of the theater. Then he drove away, and came back after Patricia called him. Rohrs himself says: "It just felt like the worst thing ever because my son's still in there. My girlfriend is still in there. I'm out here. Who leaves their child there?"
At the time, Rohrs was disoriented, panicked, and his body was flooded with adrenaline. This is how it played out. Does it mean he's a bad person or a coward? No. No one knows how they will react in an extreme situation like this until they are in it. And anyone who wants to judge it from the comfort and safety of their own home is being naive, simplistic, and downright cruel.
I just hope that Rohrs doesn't let the question "Who leaves their child there?" haunt him to the extent that he becomes a bad parent and husband (as he and Patricia are now getting married). The couple need to concentrate on healing. The video where Rohrs explains what happened is heartbreaking.
Do you think Rohrs should be judged for the leaving the theater?
Image via CNN
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Comments 200
Total coward and sad excuse for a man. My husband would put himself in front of a bullet for us 1000 times over. He'd NEVER leave his daughter in a freaking SHOOTOUT to get trampled, shot at, and breathe that tear gas. He eve admitted that he was scared of the shooter hearing his son cry so he sat him down and ran. Pathetic.
I hate that people keep judging parents for taking their kids to a late movie. Seriously people, let's get some perspective: it was a movie, not a shooting range. It is NOT abuse to take your kids to a late night movie. They probably assumed that the worse case scenario would be their kids crying and having to leave the movie in the middle of it. They had no way of knowing that a simple decision like that could put their kids in danger. It is not the parents' fault that the kids were in danger. It's the gunman's fault.
I agree with this author that you never know how you will react in a dangerous situation. I could understand being panicked, getting separated from your girlfriend and assuming she had the kids. But to drive off?? That's where I draw the line at cutting him slack. I don't have kids, but I know if this happened while my husband and I were at the movies, he would NEVER drive off without making sure I was all right. I could see my husband and I getting separated, but no way would he do that. He WAS a coward to just leave like that. When he got to his car, he obviously knew his girlfriend and kids were not with him. Unbelievable that he would leave the theatre.
Wait, he laid his baby down, ran out and drove away! What a douche!
Yeah, he drove away and didn't come back till she called him. My great-grandfather ran into a burning house 5 times to save my great uncle who was 7 at the time. He sustained burns over his entire body but saved his son (the fire was so bad the local fire fighters we unable to go in after the child but he didn't give up.) I've seen the news clippings, he even fought off several firemen who tried to restrain him from re-entering the building. I'm going to go out on a limb and say he wouldn't have left the building w/o his child. He could have gone back in, he could have turned back for them, hell he could have tried to tackle the guy with the gun but he put his child down and did a runner.
He is a sorry excuse for a man, much less a father. And she's an idiot for agreeing to marry his sorry ass. What father leaves his child, INFANT child, to the wolves because the child might bring negative attention to him by crying? I would take a million bullets to protect my children, as would my husband. This guy is just a punk.
SHE put the older child on the ground was wounded and then SAW the baby LAYING alone on the ground.
We should be saluting the MAN who did help her and her children out.
That dude totally deserves to be judged. If he had just gone outside, that's one thing. But to DRIVE away and have to be called to come back, no, there is no reason for that.
He is quite simply a piece of trash. A real man does not run out on his children when they are in danger this filth even got in his car and drove away. As for laying off the fact they took their two small children to a midnight showing I went and saw this movie last night it was too loud for children that young any person with half a brain would know that. As far as I am concerned neither one of these two should be allowed anywhere near a child just because you create a child does not make you a responsible parent.