Like many living in Aurora, Assistant Fire Chief Matt Anslow of the Aurora Fire Department will never forget the mass shooting at the Henry Pratt Co. warehouse in the city on Feb. 15, 2019.
He said that members of the department as part of a rescue task force went into the facility with police officers to render aid.
“Unfortunately, none of our members were able to help the victims,” he said Saturday during a remembrance ceremony in Aurora to honor the five people killed during the shooting six years ago. “I’ve had some difficulty processing the event six years later as I was, myself, inside the building.”
On Feb. 15, 2019, five Henry Pratt employees were killed after a disgruntled co-worker opened fire during a termination meeting inside the company’s warehouse.
The gunman later died after a confrontation and shootout with police.
The event at Aurora City Hall on Saturday marking the sixth anniversary of the incident included a wreath-laying ceremony in honor of the five victims of the mass shooting – Russell Beyer, Vicente Juarez, Clayton Parks, Josh Pinkard and Trevor Wehner.
Aurora Chief Communications and Equity Officer Clayton Muhammad said thoughts of the mass shooting in
Aurora “are triggered every time there is a shooting in the country.”
“It (a shooting) happens frequently nowadays and every time there is a workplace or a school shooting, of course we in Aurora reflect and remember,” he said. “We see these things on social media when something happens. For these families that lost someone here, we see them often-times throughout the community and we hope they’ve grown and moved on while keeping their loved ones in their memories. We do the same as a whole.
“It’s like anyone who dies within a family,” Muhammad added. “We take a pause and we remember them.”
The ceremony included a poem that was read out loud by Muhammad at the start of the program and featured a crowd of at least 70 saying the names of each victim as they were remembered during the event.
Aurora Police Cmdr. Bryan Handell spoke as guests were filing in and said the tragedy “doesn’t feel like it was six years ago.”
“I was a patrol sergeant on midnight shift and I actually found out when my wife called me because our children attended school nearby less than a half a mile away and they wouldn’t let her in the school,” Handell said. “That was kind of a shock to the system and obviously finding out more about what happened – hopefully it’s a day that will never happen again.
“We’re never going to forget about it,” Handell added. “I still work with officers that were there, that responded to it.”
Five Aurora police officers were wounded during the mass shooting — John Cebulski, Marco Gomez, James Zegar, Adam Miller and Reynaldo Rivera.
“I hope this ceremony helps those who lost someone,” Handell said Saturday. “We haven’t forgotten them either.”
Trevor Wehner, 21, was a Northern Illinois University student at his first day of work at Pratt as a human resources intern on that tragic day in 2019.
His father, Thomas Wehner, was at the ceremony on Saturday and said that six years after his son was killed during the mass shooting, the feelings are “still the same as it’s been every day since.”
“I still think about my son and those who lost their lives that day and pray for them every day,” he said. “The city’s ceremony every year – that’s the only way you keep people alive is to remember them. I’m thankful for the city that they continue to do this. I’m just glad I had family and friends and God supporting me.”
Davis Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
