The reports don't recount what happened next, but Von Tersch remembers every second. She says the officers started screaming through the open door, "Where are you? Where is the gun?" By then, they knew that a sniper had fired a shot at Gallegos, which meant that he was probably at least injured; but they also saw the chunks of cinderblock missing from the wall across from the door, as well as four holes in a tight circle in the door. The first officer cautiously stepped into the room, yelling, "I don't see the gun. I don't see the gun. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I don't see [pause] There's the gun. [Shouting] There's the gun!" Then he pulled Gallegos away from the gun, put one foot on his back below the gaping wound and held a gun to his head. Another officer handcuffed him. At that point, however, Gallegos had no more fight left in him.
Josh Turville, John Lara and Steven Bates went back to California in caskets, Durango morticians having done all they could to repair bullet holes in their heads. Turville's parents say their son is now with Jesus, and they forgive Gallegos. "God is a sovereign god," Mary Turville says.
The other parents aren't as willing to see it as fate. "It's still a mystery to us how the system broke down," Richard Bates says. He and his wife, Anita, had planned to retire to southwestern Colorado, where they own ten acres. Now those plans are on hold. "We're not sure what's going to happen now," Anita Bates says.
John Lara Jr. talked to a lawyer, but once the lawyer explained the concept of governmental immunity, he pretty much dropped all thoughts of a lawsuit. But he hasn't dropped his anger toward the authorities who had let Gallegos loose. "They hide behind the fact that they are immune," Lara says.
Jeb and Kris Bryant don't have any proctor placements right now, but they are thinking about taking more soon. Jeb Bryant says images of the three bodies in Bayfield pop up in his mind every day. "You see the picture in your mind over and over and over," he says. "I still don't know how you're supposed to deal with that."
Lara Von Tersch, Robin Adams, Ginny Mansfield and Jennifer Seekamp are back in college, although not all at UNC. They all eschewed opportunities to appear on talk shows such as Montel Williams's.
Heidi Hocker tried to come back to UNC with a big cast on her foot. After a man broke into her dorm room, she decided to drop out, but she's now pursuing her education again. Although she still has nightmares, can't trust strangers and has a bump on her foot to remind her of Gallegos, she is determined to stick to her dream of one day teaching history. Like the other survivors and families, she says she has good days and bad days. "Sometimes it comes and it really hits you," she says.
Gallegos was buried in Cortez after being eulogized by Jeb Bryant, who said that he was certain God forgave Gallegos and that his soul was now in heaven.
