The conservative group Americans for Prosperity was hammered Wednesday for using in an attack ad a photograph of U.S. Sen. Mark Udall and President Barack Obama taken after the two consoled Aurora theater shooting victims.

The heavily edited image, which was used in a TV ad, was taken by a professional journalist July 22, 2012, two days after the shooting.

Udall and Obama look grim in the picture, which is understandable considering they and other officials had visited the injured and families of the dead and were then holding a news conference at the University of Colorado Hospital.

In the AFP television ad, plastered across the photo was the statement “Mark Udall voted for Obamacare.” Gov. John Hickenlooper, present in the original picture, was cropped out.

Twelve people were killed and 58 wounded in the theater shooting.

Americans for Prosperity later released a new commercial without the image, but several family members who lost loved ones in the massacre released a statement decrying its use in the first place.

“The use of an image taken from the President’s visit to Colorado to meet with us after our children were killed in the Aurora theater shooting is an utter disgrace,” the statement said. “And to insinuate the somber expressions were for anything other than their compassionate response to our heartbreak is beyond unconscionable.”

The statement was signed by Theresa Hoover, mother of AJ Boik, 18; Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, parents of Jessica Ghawi, 24; Terry and Tom Sullivan, parents of Alex Sullivan, 27; and Caren and Tom Teves, parents of Alex Teves, 24.

Sandy Phillips told The Denver Post she and her husband are appalled by the use of the picture.

“They took a picture showing great compassion for the parents and people of that shooting and made it twisted,” she said.

The photo was pulled, but the ad was not.

“Fortunately, we can and will change the image,” said Dustin Zvonek, state director for AFP Colorado. “Sen. Udall can’t change his record that led to over 335,000 Coloradans receiving letters indicating that their health care policy had been canceled.”

AFP Colorado sounded more contrite later on Twitter: “AFP regrets erroneously using the image; it’s been removed from the ad; we sincerely apologize to Aurora families.”

AFP unveiled the ad Wednesday morning at a news conference on the west steps of Colorado’s Capitol.

The spot hits Udall, a Democrat facing Republican Cory Gardner in November in the U.S. Senate race, for the nearly 335,000 health insurance policy cancellations doled out to Coloradans since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Udall and ACA supporters argue many of those who received cancellations were offered renewals.

“Your health plan, canceled. All because Mark Udall said ‘Yes’ to Obamacare,” says the narrator.

“Republican, Democrat or unaffiliated, all Coloradans can agree that using imagery from a visit to comfort the victims of the tragedy in Aurora is out of bounds for political attacks,” said Chris Harris, Udall’s campaign spokesman.

Udall’s campaign has asked Gardner to condemn the ad.

“As someone who attended an Aurora memorial alongside Sen. Udall, Gardner surely has the decency to publicly condemn the Koch brothers for this cynical ad,” said Udall’s campaign manager, Adam Dunstone.

Gardner responded by noting that, as Udall knows, “our campaigns have nothing to do with the creation of outside advertisements.”

“That being said, the use of this picture was insensitive and wrong, and I am glad to hear that it has been taken down,” Gardner said.

Other conservative outlets have used photographs from that news conference.

The Daily Caller used a different picture of Obama and Udall at the hospital to illustrate a Jan. 27 story about a tussle between the senator and the state insurance office over Obama-care. And ColoradoPeakPolitics apologized last year for using a news conference photograph to illustrate a blog post.

Staff writers Kurtis Lee and Ryan Parker contributed to this report.

Lynn Bartels: 303-954-5327, lbartels@denverpost.com or twitter.com/lynn_bartels