A heartbroken father whose daughter was killed during a rampage at a suburban Chuck E. Cheese blistered Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper for to death row inmate Nathan Dunlap.
Dennis O’Connor called Hickenlooper a “coward” in a tough-to-watch 13-minute video released Monday by A Better Colorado Future, a political 527 overseen by Republican political operative Kelly Maher. His daughter, Colleen, was 17.
“He took the coward’s way out at the expense of my daughter,” O’Connor said. “He’s a coward who doesn’t deserve to be in office. If you can do anything, Coloradans, get this guy out of here before he screws everything up.”
Hickenlooper, a Democrat, faces a challenge from former Congressman Bob Beauprez, a Republican.
O’Connor’s former wife, Jodie McNally-Damore, has a different opinion of Hickenlooper’s decision. Dunlap, “deserves to stay exactly in the hole that he’s in … let him rot.”
And Colleen’s cousin, Gillian McNally, that she “fully supports” Gov. Hickenlooper’s decision. “I actually thought it was very brave,” McNally said.
Maher said her organization has cut a 30-second and a one-minute campaign ad from the video, but still is making a decision on how to proceed.
Colleen was shot at the Aurora pizzeria where Dunlap he used to work at before being fired. He killed four people and severely injured a fifth. Dunlap was scheduled to be executed last year and some thought the Democratic governor might commute the killer’s sentence to life in prison, instead, but the governor chose an indefinite reprieve. Hickenlooper said three jurors have said if they knew Dunlap was bi-polar they wouldn’t have voted to give him the death penalty.
“This is an awful tragedy and Nathan Dunlap will die in prison,” the governor’s campaign manager, Brad Komar, said when asked about the video. “The governor’s decision was based in his opposition to the death penalty while respecting that others disagree. It is a legitimate question whether the state should take a life.”
