(Imgur)
SHOT: Jessica Ghawi (left), who narrowly missed being a victim in a Toronto mall shooting last month, was one of those killed yesterday in Colorado, while Christopher Rapoza, of Brooklyn, posted a pic of himself in the hospital and one of his bullet-torn shirt. (
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The victims in yesterday’s “Dark Knight” nightmare ranged from a 4-month-old girl who was wounded to a Navy sailor who is still missing to an aspiring sports journalist who lost her life just weeks after escaping a gun attack in Canada.
Jessica Ghawi, who blogged about hockey and dreamed of making it in broadcasting, was among those killed by gunman James Holmes, her family said.
Ghawi had written a heart-wrenching blog post weeks earlier about how she narrowly escaped a June 2 shooting at a Toronto mall that left one dead and seven injured.
“I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday,” wrote Ghawi, a Texas native who was in Canada to visit her hockey-player boyfriend.
Ghawi, who went by the name Jessica Redfield professionally, said she had been in the targeted area just moments before the shooting. She saw bloodied victims and was traumatized.
“I saw the terror on the bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime,” she wrote. “I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end.”
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Ghawi’s brother, Jordan, wrote on his Web site that she had gone to the see “The Dark Knight Rises” with a male friend. The friend was shot twice and survived. Jessica was hit once in the head, her brother wrote.
Shortly before the movie, Jessica put up a tweet that implied she had to talk her companion into seeing it.
“Never thought I’d have to coerce a guy into seeing the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises with me,” it read.
Her last tweet said, “MOVIE DOESN’T START FOR 20 MINUTES.”
Her brother said: “It’s time to celebrate her life and get her name and the names of the other victims out there.”
Cheryl Bradley of the Mile High Hockey blog, for whom Ghawi covered the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, recalled her as “a redhead through and through, she was a ball of energy and fire, with a quick wit and an infectious personality.
“We lost a wonderful woman and budding sports journalist last night.”
“Jessica was headed for big things in life,” added Jay Koot, a former colleague at the Busted Coverage Web site. “She could write, had a huge personality and possessed that Texan drive that was going to eventually pay off with a great career in hockey.”
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Authorities had not released the names of any of the other 11 fatal victims last night as the bodies were removed.
The military confirmed that one Navy sailor was injured in the attack and that another was listed as missing. Also, two Air Force airmen were injured.
The name of the missing sailor was not released, but military officials said the sailor was attached to the Navy Cyber Command, 10th Fleet, based at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo.
Among the 58 reported injured, the youngest was a 4-month-old girl who was treated at a hospital and released.
Also among the injured was Christopher Rapoza, 28, of Brooklyn, a bartender and a bassist in a rock band called The Toothaches.
Rapoza, a Colorado native who was with his friend Perry-Elena Segura at the movie, posted photos of his bloodied shirt and his graze wound on the Internet.
“Perry and i were just at a midnite showing of batman in colorado when some f—ing psycho decided to open fire on the crowd,” he wrote on Facebook. “I was grazed in the back with a bullet but am fine. perry is unscathed, but unfortunately has lost her shoes. a lot of other people weren’t so lucky . . .”
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Rapoza posted his pictures on the Reddit Web site via an account that ironically has the screen name “themurderator.”
“My thoughts go out to those less fortunate than me,” he wrote.
The shooting forced the cancellation of his band’s gig last night at the Bitter End in the Village.
“He is super lucky,” bandmate Rose Blakelock told The Post. “He’ll be fine. He’s just shaken up.
“He left the hospital at 7 a.m.,” she said. “He was just visiting. He’s resting with his girlfriend and family.”
Rapoza works as a bartender at the Lower East Side watering hole Welcome to the Johnson’s.
“It’s hard to wrap my mind around it,” said fellow bartender Lindsey Hufnagel, 33.
“Chris is such an awesome guy, just really, really cool,” Hufnagel added. “Girls go wild over his dark brown long curly hair. He’s just fun and charming and outgoing . . . He’s a Brooklynite definitely.”
Another New York-area person was wounded in the theater. Jacci Fry of Byram in Sussex County, NJ, who recently moved to Denver for school, was at the Batman screening and was hit by flying shrapnel, according The Star-Ledger of Newark.