; Whereas the officers who arrived were fired upon by the gunman almost immediately, 5 officers were wounded, and more officers rushed in to take their place; Whereas Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman said that— (1) Every time an officer was shot, another went in. No one retreated. They forged ahead with shields and weapons as true warriors do and no one backed down until the threat was eliminated. ; and (2) The officers who were shot that day put their own lives at risk to save others. They are what it means to be a warrior. Those who were in the gunfight and those who stood ready to battle are just as worthy of the term hero. ; Whereas the 6 officers wounded or injured were— (1) Officer Diego Avila, who has served since 2016; (2) Officer John Cebulski, who has served since 1988; (3) Officer Marco Gomez, who has served since 2005; (4) Officer Adam Miller, who has served since 2015; (5) Officer Reynaldo Rivera, who has served since 1995; and (6) Officer James Zegar, who has served since 1993; Whereas the Aurora Fire Department and a broad array of municipal, county, State, and Federal law enforcement and medical support agencies also responded to the emergency promptly and assisted capably in the initial crisis and the subsequent investigation; Whereas the people of Illinois and the United States are thankful to law enforcement officers, firefighters, 911 emergency dispatchers, and emergency medical teams for their heroic response to the shooting; Whereas the Aurora shooting that took the lives of 2 members of the Northern Illinois University community took place one day after the February 14th anniversary of the 2008 mass shooting at Northern Illinois University that killed 5 students and wounded 17 others; Whereas communities across Illinois, including the city of Chicago, and across the United States have suffered from the epidemic of gun violence in the United States; Whereas the people of Aurora, Illinois, have now joined the ever-growing list of communities that have suffered from a mass shooting