BREAKING NEWS: Colorado Batman Movie Shooting Suspect Was PhD Student

lilbopeep

🌹🐰 Still trying to get it right.
Site Supporter
BREAKIN NEWS COVERAGE ON HEADLINE NEWS RIGHT NOW.
yi







Colorado Batman Movie Shooting Suspect Was PhD Student

By CLAYTON SANDELL, KEVIN DOLAK, and COLLEEN CURRY | Good Morning America – 48 minutes ago

@GMA on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook




The suspected "lone-wolf" shooter of the Batman movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo. earlier today has been identified as PhD student James Holmes, who recently withdrew from his neuroscience studies at the University of Colorado before shooting up "The Dark Knight Rises" screening.
Holmes, 24, moved to Aurora to pursue his PhD at the University of Colorado medical center, living just blocks from the hospital in an apartment that is now laced with explosives and being searched by Haz-Mat teams.
Holmes killed at least 12 people and injured as many as 50, including U.S. military members, during the midnight premiere of the movie at the Century 16 Movie Theaters in Aurora early this morning. He barged into the theater mid-show, setting off smoke bombs and stalking up and down the aisles firing as many as four weapons at viewers.
He was captured by police in the parking lot while still wearing a bullet-proof vest, riot helmet, and gas mask.
Moviegoer Christopher Ramos today recalled the real-life horror of the midnight premiere of the latest Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises," in Aurora, Colo., as a gunman decked in riot gear set off smoke bombs and opened fire on the unsuspecting audience.
"People were running everywhere, running on top of me, like kicking me, jumping over me. And there were bodies on the ground," Ramos said. "I froze up. I was scared. I honestly thought I was going to die."
"The image in our heads is stuck in there. I still have the ticket right here and honestly, I'm never going to forget this night at all. Because it was the first time I saw something that was real. Like a real-life nightmare that was there, not dreaming of," Ramos told ABC News today.
Holmes was caught by police in the parking lot of the movie theater shortly after the shooting still dressed in his riot gear, an outfit eerily similar to a villain in "The Dark Knight Rises." He warned police that his Aurora apartment was booby-trapped, leading police to evacuate the apartment complex. They were working this morning to gain entry to and diffuse the apartment, which they said seems to be "elaborately" rigged with explosives.
"The pictures we have from inside the apartment are pretty disturbing considering how elaborate the apartment is booby trapped," police said outside of the apartment complex today. The "flammable and explosive" materials could have blown up Holmes' apartment building and the ones near it, police said.
The apartment complex is home exclusively to University of Colorado Medical Center students, patients, and staff members, residents tell ABC News.
Witnesses in the movie theater said Holmes saw smoke and heard gunshots that they thought were aprt of the movie until they saw Holmes standing in front of the screen, after entering from an emergency exit. Holmes methodically stalked the aisles of the theater, shooting people at random, as panicked movie-watchers in the packed auditorium tried to escape, witnesses said.
"You just smelled smoke and you just kept hearing it, you just heard bam bam bam, non-stop. The gunman never had to reload. Shots just kept going, kept going, kept going," one witness told ABC News.
"I'm with coworkers and we're on the floor praying to God we don't get shot, and the gunshots continue on and on, and when the sound finally stopped, we started to get up and people were just bleeding," another theatergoer said.
Photos: Shooting "Dark Knight Rises" Screening in Aurora, Colorado

Police said 10 victims died inside the theater, while dozens of others were taken to local hospitals, including a child as young as 6 years old.
A San Diego woman identifying herself as James Holmes's mother spoke briefly with ABC News this morning.
She had awoken unaware of the news of the shooting and had not been contacted by authorities. She immediately expressed concern that her son may have been involved.
"You have the right person," she said.
"I need to call the police," she added. "I need to fly out to Colorado."
The woman and her husband later released a statement saying their "hearts go out to those who involved in this tragedy and to the families and friends of those involved. We are still trying to process this information and we appreciate that people will respect our privacy."
Holmes was wearing a bullet-proof vest and riot helmet and carrying a gas mask, rifle, and handgun, when he was apprehended, according to police. Federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms sources told ABC News that agents will begin tracing an assault rifle, shotgun, and two handguns used in the attack.
As he was taken into custody, Holmes mentioned having "booby-trapped" his apartment with explosives stored, leading police to evacuate his entire North Aurora apartment complex and search the buildings early this morning. Hazmat officers are expected to arrive at the complex sometime this morning.
The highly-anticipated third installment of the Batman trilogy opened to packed auditoriums around the country at midnight showings on Friday morning, and features a villain named Bane who wears a bulletproof vest and gas mask. Trailers for the movie show explosions at public events including a football game. Though many moviegoers dressed in costume to attend the opening night screening, police have made no statements about any connection between the gunman's motives and the movie.
Police in New York have intensified security around showings of the film throughout the five boroughs today, with police commissioner Ray Kelley saying that "as a precaution against copycats and to raise the comfort levels among movie patrons in the wake of the horrendous shooting in Colorado, the New York City Police Department is providing coverage at theaters where the 'The Dark Knight Rises' is playing."
The Paris premiere of the movie has been cancelled in the wake of the shootings. "Warner Bros. and the filmmakers are deeply saddened to learn about this shocking incident. We extend our sincere sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims at this tragic time," the movie's producers said in a statement.
Witnesses watching movies in theaters next to the one where the shooting took place said bullets tore through the theater walls and they heard screaming.
"The suspect throws tear gas in the air, and as the tear gas appears he started shooting," said Lamar Lane, who was watching the midnight showing of the movie with his brother. "It was very hard to breathe. I told my brother to take cover. It took awhile. I started seeing flashes and screaming, I just saw blood and people yelling and a quick glimpse of the guy who had a gas mask on. I was pushed out. There was chaos, we started running."
One witness said she saw people dropping to the ground after the gunshots began.
"We were maybe 20 or 30 minutes into the movie and all you hear, first you smell smoke, everybody thought it was fireworks or something like that, and then you just see people dropping and the gunshots are constant," witness Christ Jones told ABC's Denver affiliate KMGH. "I heard at least 20 to 30 rounds within that minute or two."
A man who talked to a couple who was inside the theater told ABC News, "They got up and they started to run through the emergency exit, and that when she turned around, she said all she saw was the guy slowly making his way up the stairs and just firing at people, just picking random people," he said. "The gunshots continued to go on and on and then after we didn't hear anything...we finally got up and there was people bleeding, there was people obviously may have been actually dead or anything, and we just ran up out of there, there was chaos everywhere."
Witnesses and victims were taken to Gateway High School for questioning.
Hundreds of police and FBI agents are involved in the investigation. A senior official who is monitoring the situation in Washington said that early guidance based on the early snapshot of this man's background indicated that this act does not appear to be linked to radical terrorism or anything related to Islamic terrorism.
Though police have said that they believe the shooter was acting alone, they checked all cars in the parking lot and cleared the area near the theater.
Dr. Comilla Sasson, at the University of Colorado Hospital where many of the victims were taken, said they are currently operating on nine critical patients and have treated 22 in all. She called the hospital "an absolutely terrifying scene all night."
"The good news is that the 3-month-old has actually been discharged home and is in the care of their parents
In a statement, President Obama said, "Michelle and I are shocked and saddened by the horrific and tragic shooting in Colorado. Federal and local law enforcement are still responding, and my administration will do everything that we can to support the people of Aurora in this extraordinarily difficult time. We are committed to bringing whoever was responsible to justice, ensuring the safety of our people, and caring for those who have been wounded."
A man who was in the adjacent theater with his son, said that the commotion began as one of the action scenes was starting up.
"These guys came through, and they say someone's shooting," he said. "I thought, 'Oh, they must have heard the fireworks, you know ... I had no idea. And then the alarms started to go off in the theater.'"
An explosive device was also found inside the movie house. Police are not sure whether the device, which investigators are calling a bomb, was already in place or whether it was thrown into the crowd.
Ambulances rushed to the scene as audience members fled the theater.
Investigators are now interviewing friends and associates of the suspect to get a sense of the man's background.
For continuing coverage on "Tragedy in Colorado: The Movie Theater Massacre," tune in to "World News," "20/20" and "Nightline."
Matthew Mosk contributed to this report.

http://gma.yahoo.com/colorado-batma...d-student-085940589--abc-news-topstories.html
 

lilbopeep

🌹🐰 Still trying to get it right.
Site Supporter
My hub and DD went to see that movie today. First showing. And when they were leaving DD and hub said the workers were acting funny and closing the doors. SO glad we live in NJ!!
 

lilbopeep

🌹🐰 Still trying to get it right.
Site Supporter
Gunman kills 12 in Colorado movie theater

By Michael Pearson, CNN
updated 1:30 PM EDT, Fri July 20, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW: Supsect was shooting "like hunting season," witness says
  • "Such violence, such evil is senseless," President Barack Obama says
  • Police say 12 people killed and 38 wounded in movie theater shooting
  • The suspected gunman was taken into custody outside the theater, police say

(CNN) -- A heavily armed gunman attacked an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater early Friday, tossing tear gas before opening fire on the terrified audience and killing 12 and wounding 38, authorities said. The theater was showing the new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises."
One of the injured was just 3 months old, hospital workers said.
The shooting unfolded inside a darkened theater packed with Batman fans, some in costume for the movie's premiere. Screaming, panicked moviegoers scrambled to escape from the black-clad gunman, who wore a gas mask and randomly shot as he walked up the theater's steps, witnesses said.
It was a scene "straight out of a horror film," said Chris Ramos, who was inside the theater.


"He was just literally shooting everyone, like hunting season," Ramos said of the shooter.
Theater shooting unfolds in real time on social media

120720043140-holmes-colorado-suspect-horizontal-gallery.jpg
Photos: Shooting at Colorado movie theater



Police officers swarming to the theater encountered bloody, groaning victims streaming out of the theater. Others remained inside, many with gruesome injuries, according to recordings of emergency calls with dispatchers.
Victims flooded overwhelmed hospitals.
"I don't know how else to explain it, it's horrific," said Tracy Lauzon, director of EMS and trauma services at Aurora Medical Center.
Two federal law enforcement officers identified the suspect as James Holmes, 24, of Aurora.
Authorities recovered four guns -- a rifle similar to an AR-15, a shotgun and two Glock handguns, a senior official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms familiar with the investigation told CNN. It was unclear how many of the weapons were fired, the official said.
After the suspect told police there was a bomb at his apartment, officers went there and found a "very sophisticated" booby trap inside, Aurora police Chief Dan Oates told reporters. However, the senior ATF official said no explosives were found.
Shooting turns movie into surreal horror: 'This is real'
Police arrested the man shortly after the shooting ended in a rear parking lot of the theater, Frank Fania, a police spokesman, told CNN.
"He did not resist. He did not put up a fight," Fania said. Police seized a rifle and a handgun from the suspect, and another gun was found in the theater, he said. It was unclear where law enforcement found a second handgun.


The suspect is scheduled to appear in an Arapahoe County, Colorado courtroom on Monday morning, Rob McCallum, spokesman for the Colorado Judicial Department said Friday. The court file was sealed, according to a court order.
The FBI is assisting in the investigation, officials said.
Oates said there was no evidence of a second gunman, and FBI spokesman Jason Pack said it did not appear the incident was related to terrorism.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper issued a statement saying the shooting was "not only an act of extreme violence, it is also an act of depravity."
Aspiring sports reporter feared dead in shooting
"It is beyond the power of words to fully express our sorrow this morning," he said.
President Barack Obama canceled campaign events Friday, telling supporters at what had been scheduled as a rally in Forty Myers, Florida, that "there will be other days for politics."
"This will be a day for prayer and reflection," he said, calling for the country to unite as one and support the victims.
"Such violence, such evil is senseless. It is beyond reason," he said before ending the event to return to Washington.
Chaos broke out during the showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" at the Century Aurora 16 theater when the shooting began, police and witnesses said.
The gunman went to the rear door of the theater and propped it open, then tossed a canister before starting to shoot, according to a federal law enforcement source involved in the investigation.
A federal law enforcement official told CNN the man used tear gas.
One moviegoer, who was not identified, told KUSA the gunman was wearing a gas mask.
Some people in the audience thought the thick smoke and gunfire were a special effect accompanying the movie, police and witnesses said.
The smoke smelled like a Fourth of July firework, said CNN iReporter Adam Witt. It took a few gunshots before he figured out what was going on.
iReporter witness: 'We have to run'
"I hit the floor and hid behind the seats in front of me, pulling my wife down to hide with me," Witt said. "It was the longest minute of my life. The gunshots just kept coming. I knew it could be over any second. I knew my wife could be gone any second. It was absolutely surreal. I felt something hit my left arm, and my first thought was, 'At least it's just my arm.'"
"There were so many people running," he said. "I didn't look back. I just remember getting up from the floor and shouting, 'We have to run.'"
Witt said he held his wife's hand as they rushed out of the theater.
"There was a moment where I lost her hand, but I grabbed her shirt," he said. "We didn't let go of each other."
Quentin Caldwell, who was attending a screening in the adjacent theater, said he wasn't sure at first what was going on, despite hearing a "pop, pop, pop, pop" sound.
"We really didn't know something was happening until someone came from the left entrance and said we should not go outside because somebody with a gun was out there," he said.
Armed guards appeared at the theater exit and demanded audience members raise their arms to ensure they were not carrying weapons, then told them to run, Caldwell said.
"Outside was chaos. There was wounded everywhere," he said.
Cell phone video taken by someone at the theater showed scores of people screaming and fleeing the building. Some had blood on their clothes.
A police officer carried a girl believed to be about 9 with gunshot wounds to her back out of the theater, a witness said. "She wasn't moving."
Timeline: Worst mass shootings in U.S.
Officers rushed many of the wounded to hospitals in their patrol cars.
Police initially said 14 people had died -- 10 in the theater and four at area hospitals -- but revised the death toll to 12 later Friday morning, according to Aurora Police Lt. Jad Lanigan.
Several people remained in critical condition at area hospitals.
Of the wounded, the University of Colorado Hospital said it had treated 22 people, including nine who were seriously injured. All of the wounded suffered from gunshot wounds, which ranged from minor to critical, spkeswoman Jacque Montgomery said.
The victims being treated there ranged in age from 3 months to 45, the hospital said.
Denver Health Center had six patients from the shooting, one in critical condition and five in fair condition, said Shelly Davis, house supervisor.
Swedish Hospital in Denver was treating three people, two of them in critical condition and one in fair condition. A fourth patient with minor injuries was treated and released, spokeswoman Nicole Williams said.
Children's Hospital Colorado said it had treated six adult victims, one of whom died. And Parker Adventist Hospital was treating two people for minor injuries, according to a spokeswoman.
KWGN: Witnesses first thought gunfire was part of movie
After Holmes allegedly told police he had a bomb at his apartment, authorities evacuated his building and one across the street, according to witnesses.
A woman who lives across the street from where the suspect's apartment said police evacuated her building around 4 a.m.
"They told us there was a bomb or bomb material located in the house across the street from us." Rebecca Bradshaw said.
Law enforcement officers who searched the suspect's apartment found "items of interest," a federal law enforcement source involved in the investigation told HLN. He did not elaborate.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents were involved in the apartment search, agency spokesman Tom Mangan said.
In addition to looking into the possibility of explosives, ATF agents also are conducting emergency traces on the weapons to see how they were obtained, Mangan said.
Authorities also searched the suspect's car in the parking lot of the movie theater.
Opinion: Gun control won't stop mass murder
In addition to canceling his Florida campaign appearances, Obama pulled some advertising in Colorado.
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney also pulled advertising and issued a statement, saying he and his wife Anne were "deeply saddened by the news of the senseless violence."
Warner Bros., the studio behind the movie, said the company and filmmakers were "deeply saddened" to learn of the incident. The studio canceled the movie's Paris premiere, while New York police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said his officers would watch over screenings of "The Dark Knight" to prevent copycat shootings.
The National Theater Owners Association said in a statement that its members would be reviewing security procedures in the wake of the shooting.
911 tape: 'I need somebody to shut this movie off'
The movie theater where the shooting took place has not been the site of any security incidents, said Timothy Warner, CEO of Cinemark Theaters, which owns the complex.
"You know, obviously you know, the person made a well-organized ... and had an assault weapon that would probably overpower any security that we would've had," he said. "I mean, this is obviously a very deranged gunman that had access to very high powerful weapons."
Aurora, a Denver suburb, is about 13 miles from Littleton, Colorado -- site of the April 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
In that incident, two teenage students, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, armed themselves with guns and bombs and opened fire inside the high school. They killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before killing themselves.


http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/20/us/colorado-theater-shooting/index.html
 

Ian M.

New member
Tonight I feel as heartsick and stunned as I remember feeling back in 1999 when two students at a highschool (ironically, also in Colorado, not too far from where this morning's tragedy occurred) shot and killed 13 fellow students and wounded many more before committing suicide. One wonders how these horrific events can possibly happen? What snaps inside the human mind that works to such horror? I've heard people today wondering how God could allow such things to happen. I have to believe what I've been taught all my life........that God doesn't "allow" such things to happen and He grieves just as we do when man turns weapons on one another in violence. To say this shouldn't happen is an understatement. Has society and media created this sort of thing, I wonder? Is it really all that necessary to produce films that can be copied in real life to such awful ends? Just consider that this mass murderer was dressed - intentionally, possibly - just like the worst "bad guy" in the movie he chose to do his awful deed at. Why? Why, indeed?

Ian
 

Ian M.

New member
My hub and DD went to see that movie today. First showing. And when they were leaving DD and hub said the workers were acting funny and closing the doors. SO glad we live in NJ!!


Peeps, I don't honestly believe that it matters where one lives. Evil doesn't generally play favorites! This manner of tragedy can (and does) happen anywhere and everywhere. Remember the Subway shooter in Manhattan some years ago. I was very young and don't remember all the details about that guy but he sure wasn't in Colorado. His name almost is on the tip of my brain, but I just can't put a name to him. But if memory serves me correctly, I seem to recall that it was on account of him that the "Angels" were formed in New York City by Silwa (now why I can remember his name I've no idea!). The world is chock full of crazy people!
And it doesn't seem to take too much to set them off! Kind of makes one glance at those around them passing by on the street and wonder.........

Ian
 

Ian M.

New member
Yes, that's the name I couldn't come up with! Thanks, Peeps. It keeps me awake when I can't remember a name.

Ian:thankyou:
 
Top