Aurora has shocked the nation as details flood in about the shooting at the premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises," but as recently as December the city was ranked in the top ten of "America's Safest Cities" by Forbes.
The magazine based their findings on FBI-reported violent crime rates and traffic fatality rates by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Only cities with populations over 250,000 were included in the study.
According to the city's most recent crime stats released before Friday's shooting, the city had seen a 4.3 percent increase in violent crime from last year. The report says that while shooting incidents had increased this year, the number of shooting victims had been on the decline.
Even before the shooting, the ranking caused some bewilderment among Coloradans on Twitter.
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Colorado Springs was ranked No. 8 in the study, despite the fact that El Paso County has the highest number of referrals of suspected child abuse in the state, and had some of the fastest growing rates in child poverty as recently as 2010.
The city of Aurora ranked No. 9 with a lower violent crime rate than Colorado Springs.
In a press conference Friday Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said 71 people had been shot and 12 killed in what's being called the worst Colorado shooting since Columbine, just miles down the road.
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