N.M. woman wounded in theater massacre

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A New Mexico woman who recently moved to Denver,is one of the wounded in the movie theater mass shooting in Aurora, Colo.

Patricia Legarreta, her fiancé Jamie Rohrs and their two small children were looking forward to watching the midnight premiere of the new Batman movie but didn't realize moments later they would be diving for cover from a gunman.

UNM grad Rohrs was still choked up hours after Legarreta became one of the victims in the movie theater mass shooting. Shrapnel punctured the mother’s leg.

“She got shot; she got shot,” Rohrs said.

The couple was going to sit in the front row of the movie theater, where the gunman barged in, but instead decided to sit in the second-floor balcony.

Rohrs held their baby, Ethan. Legarreta sat next to her 4-year-old daughter, who was asleep with her head in her mother's lap. She said 15 minutes into the movie shots rang out.

The couple tried to protect their kids, both trying to shield them with their own bodies. Moments later Legarreta realized her leg that her daughter was hiding behind had been hit by shrapnel.

The parents grabbed their kids and ran.

“Shots stopped going,” Rohrs said. “I guess there was an exit at the top, and she ran out the top.”

Rohrs graduated from Pojoaque High School before graduating from the pharmacy program at UNM.

Albuquerque police said while the Colorado incident appears to be isolated, they're alert for the possibility of a copy cat.

Throughout the weekend police will be patrolling local movie theater parking lots in between other calls and walking through theaters to make their presence known.

Any suspicious activity or disturbance calls from a theater will be a top priority.