CINCINNATI —

After serving as chief of University of Cincinnati's police department and 23 years with Cincinnati Police Department, Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold is now leading her new city through one of its darkest days.


"I feel numb, and it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to talk to victims, their families," Herold said.


Herold read off the names of the ten victims, including one of her own, 51-year-old officer Eric Talley, a husband and father of seven.


"I can tell you that he's a very kind man and he didn't have to go into policing. He had a profession before this," Herold said.


With two mass shootings in two weeks, mass shooter expert and criminology professor Dr. Jennifer Murray said this uptick we're seeing is due in part to the isolation from the pandemic.


"Mass killers are typically loners, misfits, isolated to begin with, and they're paranoid. When they were in lockdown, they were probably more isolated than most people in lockdown," Murray said.


Murray said mass shooters fantasize about what they're going to do long before carrying out the attack.


"They plan it. They get the weapons for it. They visualize it in their minds, and it's kind of a temporary band-aid that gets them through life for a while," Murray said.


Activist and Fifth Third shooting survivor Whitney Austin said every day she works to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else.


"It's far time that takes action and we come together on this issue. We have a moment now, a moment in which we need to act upon," Austin said.

Austin has been advocating for the passage of the crisis aversion and retention bill. It would create a legal path to separate someone in crisis from their firearm temporarily and allow for the transfer of firearms and ammunition to a responsible party outside the household.