AURORA (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Outside the Henry Pratt Company in Aurora, there's a memorial: flowers, candles — and five crosses.
People came by, some with flowers. They paid their respects. Then they left.
One woman stayed for several minutes, wiping tears away as she stood in front of the memorial, remembering one of the victims, Vicente Juarez.
"He was very funny. I joked around with him every month," said Nicole Pena.
Once a month, Pena's job checking fire extinguishers took her to the same Henry Pratt building where Juarez worked.
"Every time I'd come in he'd honk the horn on the forklift and say, 'Hey, Nicole!' whether he was halfway across the warehouse or he'd ride alongside me and ask how my month was (and) ask how I was doing because it had been a whole month since he'd seen me," she said. He was a very sweet guy. It's going to be very hard now to just not see him; it's going to be a lot different."
#AuroraStrong vigil in downtown Aurora: moment of silence for each of the 5 victims. Cong Sean Casten tells crowd, "There are going to be people who say don't politicize this moment. Please do.". @WBBMNewsradio pic.twitter.com/Ma6xcjQuh1
— Stephen Miller (@ssmiller) February 18, 2019Pena was supposed to be there on Friday, but was delayed at a previous job site. She said something prevented her from leaving and she had to stay longer than usual.
That was fortunate for her, but she still lost her friend Juarez.
Rob Katzberg also visited the memorial. He was there thinking of the 21-year-old intern who died, Trevor Wehner.
