The Luby's cafeteria where a gunman killed 23 people in the nation's worst mass shooting will reopen early next year, officials said. At least one survivor of the massacre says he'll eat there.
"I want to be able to go eat anywhere I want to eat, anytime I feel like it. This is America," said Kirby Lack, pastor of a non-denominational church in Copperas Cove.Lack was wounded when George Hennard, 35, drove his pickup through a front window at the cafeteria Oct. 16, then began a shooting rampage that lasted about 15 minutes before he killed himself.
The cafeteria's dining room will be remodeled, and it will reopen in February or March, said Ralph "Pete" Erben, president and chief executive officer of Luby's Cafeterias Inc.
"Again and again, we have heard that Luby's is just more than a dining place in Killeen. It has been a gathering place -- for meetings, for social occasions, for business people, citizens and families," he said.
He said most people wanted the cafeteria reopened.
Lack said closing the cafeteria "would give Hennard the memorial that he was looking for."
Killeen Mayor Major Blair announced plans for a memorial in a city park to honor the shooting victims.
Erben said nearly all the 44 people who worked in the careteria want it to reopen and want to go back to work there. The workers are still on the payroll, although the cafeteria has been shut since the shooting.