Lonnie Phillips and his wife, Sandy, are gun-violence prevention activists based in San Antonio, Texas.

In the few days after the murder of my daughter Jessica, my wife and I were still trying to make sense of it all. I was standing at the glass doors at the rear of my house, watching the rain fall on the patio—not seeing the rain so much as the mental image of Jessi laughing at her boyfriend’s expression as I dumped a huge pot of steaming crawfish on the newspaper-covered patio table. Jessi loved to invite her friends to our crawfish boils and she loved Cajun food, and my thoughts were on how happy she had been in that moment when my wife interrupted my vision with the words, “You do know that we are going to get involved in in the gun violence movement, don’t you?” It was one of those questions that wasn’t really a question. I answered her without thinking about it: “Yes, I do.”

That was the first time voice was given to the unspoken truth that we both intuitively knew. We suddenly had a national stage because of the horrendous way out daughter died. We both knew that if we wanted to stay sane and find meaning for her death, we were obligated to do what Jessi’s irrepressible spirit was screaming at us: “Use my death to stop the escalation of gun violence in this country.”


Now the curtain is about to be raised on that stage again, and world-wide attention is going to be momentarily bestowed once again on Jessi’s death as the Aurora Theater trial gets under way with jury selection this week. Perhaps that too will help our cause—shedding light on the appalling ease with which a mass murderer got hold of his weapons.

And yet, despite flood of publicity that you would think any campaign would want—I was until recently the campaign manager for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence—I was horrified when Arapahoe County Chief District Judge Carlos Samour, Jr., issued a ruling in October that will help to turn the trial into a spectacle. His ruling will make my daughter’s killer—a man I refuse to name—the center of attention. That, sadly enough, is probably what he was seeking all along when he shot Jessi and 11 other people dead on July 20, 2012.

In his ruling, the case’s presiding judge, Samour, tried to thread what he deemed a very prudent needle, announcing that, yes, he would permit TV coverage of the trial of Aurora Theater killer, but that the footage would be limited to a ceiling-mounted camera controlled by the court. Judge Samour wrote that he was allowing the TVs “strictly to make the trial accessible to a larger portion of the public, including some victims.”

Here’s what that means: Judge Samour decided to permit a consortium of mega-media conglomerates to make money off Jessica’s death and simultaneously glamorize the man who killed her. In doing so, he’ll encourage other sick individuals who may be seeking to go out in a blaze of media attention to follow this killer’s path. It means, inevitably, other parents will someday suffer the pain that my wife Sandy and I suffer now—and will continue to suffer for the rest of our lives.

That is the ultimate meaning of Samour’s decision, which he came to despite very emphatic and detailed objections from both the prosecution and defense attorneys who expressed concern about exposing witnesses and families of victims to worldwide electronic media harassment—against demands for more access by outside media. Samore’s ruling has ensured that, in effect, the killer’s need for a worldwide stage outweighs the rights of the victims.

This was always going to be a unique case. There are no other recent cases of high-profile rampage killings where the shooter actually survived to stand trial; therefore we can only speculate on what will happen if television cameras are allowed into the courtroom in this case.

Unfortunately, Judge Samour’s ruling did not surprise us, based on his remarks in the hearing. My wife and I felt he had already made his decision, and that he just needed time to research the justification of it. Nevertheless, it still hurt that he played down all the very valid arguments against expanded media coverage—arguments put forth by both victims’ families and survivors, as well as by prosecution and defense attorneys. He chose to ignore it all—including the precedent that Colorado has never televised a death penalty case of this magnitude in its history.

Sandy, Lonnie and Jessica Phillips. | Courtesy of Lonnie Phillips

Judge Samour said he was skeptical about the contention by both prosecutors and defense attorneys that expanded media coverage would result in unfair scrutiny of victims and witnesses, saying his decision was a tough call that balanced the defendant’s right to a fair trial with the “need for public access.”

So now we know where the judge stands. He is taking account of the murderer’s rights. He is paying attention to the public’s rights. But what about my family’s rights—our right to grieve and honor her in privacy? What of the right of our dead daughter not to have her memory desecrated?

We do not need any more undue attention paid to the moment that changed our lives forever. We don’t need that man—that monster—to have one more minute of publicity.

***

At 12:23 a.m. on July 21, 2012, I was in a deep sleep and Sandy took the call from Brent, a friend of Jessi’s that had gone with her to see the midnight showing of the new “Batman Movie.”

In order to get the right perspective on the horror of getting a call that will end with you knowing, without a doubt, that your daughter is dead, you have to know two things: Brent is like a son to Sandy and me; he is also a paramedic. He knew that Sandy was awake because she and Jessi had been texting minutes before the movie started. Although he had been shot once with a high-velocity steel-jacketed .223 bullet that traveled through his body, barely missing his spleen, he felt compelled to make that call to Sandy seconds after the shooting that killed twelve people and wounded 58 others.

Calling from his cell phone as he leaned against the railing that leads to the exit, Brent knew that he could not leave Jessi without telling her mother what happened. He knew he had only seconds to do it convincingly.

He started with, “Jessi and I have been in a random shooting, and I think I have been hit twice.” His tone and the screaming in the background told her immediately that this was not a prank. Her next question was, “Where is Jessi?” Brent answered quickly, “She was hit also.”

Sandy: “Is she OK? Please tell me she’s OK?”

Brent: “I tried.”

Sandy: “Please Brent, please, tell me she is not dead.”

Brent: “I’m sorry. I tried.”

Those words slammed into her heart and the screaming started. That scream that was so piercing I was instantly awake and ran to her in the living room, thinking that she was being attacked. In the instant after Brent described Jessi’s wounds to me I felt that excruciating pain too and I knew the world that I used to live in was no more. I no longer had a daughter, and my wife would never be the same.

There was a small blessing we had that terrible night. My daughter was one of the chosen ones who got to ride in one the police cars that ferried the wounded because she was still breathing. She died on the way to the hospital, but she did not have to lie among the eleven innocents who spent the night on the theater floor waiting to be identified. For that, my wife and I are thankful. We were spared the anguish the other families experienced while waiting to find out if their loved ones were dead or alive.

Yet we still cannot grieve in peace. There are conspiracy theories on the internet now about the crime that killed our daughter. Google “Aurora Theater conspiracy theories” and you will see that they are real. There is one person who has threatened my son, my co-workers and several other family members of the deceased with bodily harm because he says we “staged” the theater massacre as part of a government plot to confiscate all the guns in America. This fellow is now in jail for terrorist threats.

Here is a quote from Samour’s judicial order: “There is no dispute that this trial will receive pervasive publicity and that, as a result, some of the individuals connected with this case will feel harassed by the media and the public. But the defense and prosecution ignore that this will happen regardless of whether EMC [expanded media coverage] is allowed. And there is no credible evidence in the record that EMC will exacerbate the problem.”

In essence, he is saying: You are right. The victims are going to be harassed by the media and the public. But since you cannot provide credible evidence that more media coverage will make it worse, we are going to go with more media coverage. It’s worth noting, though, that the judge could not provide credible evidence that expanded media coverage would serve justice any better.

We have talked to numerous, respected mental health professionals and they all agree that there is usually a common thread to these mass-murder cases: Going on a killing spree is often an attractive option for someone who is suicidal and angry at the world. When life does not meet their unrealistic expectations they become enraged. This sick notion of going out in a blaze of media glory is the mindset of many of these young rampage killers.

Thus, a ruling like Judge Samour’s has the potential to influence someone who wants to make the world to pay for his pain, and at the same time feed his psychotic ego, by setting a new record as the most prolific killer of all time. Consider that investigators found physical evidence, for example, that the killer in Newtown, Conn., researched and discussed his predecessor at Aurora. They were both young white males gifted with above-average intelligence and cursed by their inadequate social skills, which made them both outcasts. Apparently they both came to similar conclusions: Rejection by society has made life not worth living, but I am so angry about it that I am going to take as many others with me as I can. Both individuals chose the same weapon, and five months after Aurora came Newtown. That killer went for babies, perhaps to one-up his competition and reset the bar.

My wife and I are hardly alone in thinking this. Last week we agreed to work with FBI Special Agent Chris Combs, who launched the “Don’t Name Them” campaign urging the media to avoid identifying alleged mass killers. Researchers at Texas State University have also found that these murderers are often partially motivated by the fame that has accrued to past shooters.

We have seen the trials of OJ Simpson, Jodi Arias, George Zimmerman and Casey Anthony, but unfortunately, few remember the names of those who were murdered. How many of the victims killed in the Aurora Theater Massacre can you list from memory?

***

After the Aurora shooting, we quickly relinquished our moment in the spotlight as the parents of a victim. Shortly afterward the presidential debates became national news—and one took place in Denver—but we could not even get the candidates to discuss the hot potato of gun reform. We felt we were pretty much dead in the water—and then Newtown happened, just five months after Aurora. For a time, it dramatically re-energized the debate. President Obama, and the rest of the world, was so moved by the horror of the massacre of 20 babies that he desperately wanted some type of gun violence legislation. He put Vice President Biden in charge of a task force that interviewed gun violence prevention groups, National Rifle Association representatives, mental health professionals, and producers of violent videos.

At the time I was invited by Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign, to speak at the meeting that Biden held with about 15 gun violence prevention groups in January 2013. Some suggestions from that meeting later found their way into the Manchin-Toomey background check bill. Months later, Sandy and I were present in the gallery of the Senate when that bill was killed by a Republican-led filibuster. That was the defining moment when Sandy and I decided we needed the help of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence to take the fight to the next level. We were compelled to go on the offensive.

Now Sandy and I have joined forces with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Arnold and Porter law firm to go after online ammunition sellers who fail to scrutinize suspicious transactions. In this case, where sellers are dealing in instruments of death and combat armor, we believe their responsibility to the public safety goes beyond mere dereliction of civic duty and into the realm of willful and extreme negligence.

We are putting irresponsible and negligent sellers of munitions and armaments on notice. We are coming after you. On September 16, 2014, we filed a lawsuit against BulkAmmo.com, The Sportsman Guide, BTP Arms, and BulletProofBodyArmorHQ.com. All of them sell guns online. BulkAmmo.com asked no questions of our daughter’s eventual killer before selling him over 4,000 rounds of .223 ammunition for his AR-15—just as easy as though he were buying a pair of shoes. That is simply morally wrong.

The purpose of this lawsuit is to put a spotlight on irresponsible on-line sellers of ammunition, body armament and high capacity magazines. This is not about money. We are suing them for injunctive relief. We want a conversation with them on why the profit from a large order of ammunition delivered to an unknown civilian trumps their civic duty to ask even a rudimentary question as to the identity of the purchaser.

Still, despite the attention it will likely give to our campaign, I am dreading the coming trial of the Aurora Theater killer, whose attorneys are going to argue that he should get off because he was insane. It is going to be a rough journey for all of us, even in the best of conditions. To see a death penalty case to its conclusion in Colorado takes over twenty years. But even as we fight against the abuse of guns, let us at least keep the publicity to a minimum; let us, at the very least, not permit the ever-exploitative eyes of the 24-hour TV world into our private lives, naming and picturing the murderer in endless cycles, exacerbated by endless perpetuation in social media. When journalists and the national media repeatedly and continually use the name of the perpetrator, it does little to help get to the bottom of the crime—but it could be a step toward the end of giving copy cats the spotlight.

Let us focus instead as a nation on those who were brutally slaughtered instead of making those who kill infamous. Caren Teves, the mother of Alex Teves, who was also killed in the theater, said it best: “The courtroom is a place of justice for victims, not an entertainment venue for the masses.” The entire country is not the jury. The jury is selected from the taxpayers of Arapaho County to do the very serious job of deciding the fate of the accused.

Let us not turn him into something more than he is—a murderer who robbed us of our children and the lives we once had. The next weeks are going to be hard enough.