Shooting Massacre at Dark Knight Rises Premiere

[Ned]

http://www.cnn.com/2....html?hpt=hp_t1

 

 

(CNN) -- The man suspected of shooting up an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater screening the new Batman film early Friday, killing 12 and wounding 59, also left his apartment rigged with traps, police said.

"It's booby trapped with various incendiary and chemical devices and trip wires," Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said, adding that it could take days to work through the apartment safely.

Five buildings around suspect James E. Holmes' Aurora apartment were evacuated, Oates said.

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Police say Holmes, 24, dressed head-to-toe in protective tactical gear, set off two devices of some kind before spraying the theater with bullets from an AR-15 rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and at least one of two .40-caliber handguns police recovered at the scene.

Oates said investigators are "confident" that Holmes acted alone.

The shooting unfolded inside a darkened theater packed with Batman fans, some in costume for the premiere of the movie "The Dark Knight Rises." 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.

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The gunman went to the rear door of Century 16 theater and propped it open, then tossed in 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, but Oates said Friday afternoon that it was not clear what the substance was.

Holmes surrendered without resistance within seven minutes of the first calls from panicked moviegoers reporting the shooting, Oates said. He is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, court officials said.

Police officers swarming to the theater encountered bloody, groaning victims streaming out of the complex. Others remained inside, many with gruesome injuries, according to recordings of emergency calls with dispatchers.

Victims flooded overwhelmed hospitals. One of the injured is just 4 months old, the child's mother said.

"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.

Theater shooting unfolds in real time on social media

Oates said the man was wearing a ballistic helmet and protective gear for his legs, throat and groin, black gloves and a gas mask.

Jennifer Seeger, who survived the attack, said she had seen the man and thought his get-up was part of the entertainment for the film's debut.

She said the man first shot toward the ceiling, then began shooting at people. He reloaded during his attack, she said.

"He was just literally just massacring anybody that got up that was trying to run away," Seeger said.

Holmes is scheduled to appear in an Arapahoe County, Colorado, courtroom 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.

FBI officials said it did not appear the incident was related to terrorism.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said the attack was the work of a "very deranged mind."

"Obviously no words can express the intensity of this tragedy," he said.

Shooting turns movie into surreal horror: 'This is real'

President Barack Obama canceled campaign events Friday, telling supporters at what had been scheduled as a rally in Fort 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.

Flags at the White House were lowered to half-staff Friday afternoon in honor of the victims.

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CNN iReporter Adam Witt, who was in the theater, said it took a few gunshots before he figured out what was going on.

"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.'"

iReporter witness: '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 when he heard 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.

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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. The initial injury count of 38 was revised upward to 59 Friday afternoon.

Several people remained in critical condition at hospitals.

KWGN: Witnesses first thought gunfire was part of movie

It may take hours or even days to clear Holmes' apartment, Oates said.

Investigators looking into a window with a camera have seen a sophisticated booby-trap with trip wires connecting incendiary and chemical devices, he said.

Oates said he has never seen anything like it.

A woman who lives across the street from 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.

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 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

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" in the city to prevent copycat shootings.

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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 shot people inside the high school. They killed 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves.

Are you there? Share your story on CNN iReport and post tributes to the victims.

CNN's Carol Cratty, Mike Brooks, Ed Payne, Joe Sterling, Tina Burnside, Chelsea Carter, Melissa Abbey and Jim Spellman contributed to this report.

 

I've always been afraid of the lone psychopath collecting guns and gear privately to then unleash on the public, and now it has happened again. Terrible. :( Stuff like this makes me think we should take steps to monitor weapon purchases more.

 

What uses, even for 'hunting,' does a civilian have for a full assault rifle, tactical gear, and gas grenades?

[Mylez]

[bleep]ing lunatic.

[Lord Paul]

I'm actually looking at buying an AR. I sure feel a hell of a lot safer having that in addition to my revolver. Most nutjobs like this could still easily get their hands on those particular weapons so the last thing we need is more regulation.

 

Frankly, they're just plain fun. Will I ever need to protect myself with it? No, very slim chance.

[Assume Nothing]

... I wonder what his motive was. It might just be time to rethink gun-control policies.

[Ned]

This unfortunately casts a public negative light on gun-owners, I'm sure most of them are perfectly fine law abiding citizens, but when the 1% of lunatic gun owners does something like this there will be public outrage. Don't know if increased gun control would help anything, like Paul said they could just get it illegally.

[EMT James 72]

God Bless Everyone involved

 

@Lord Paul, Hell yea man, I have an arsenal of rifles in my house, AR15, AK47, Mosan Nagants, SKS, 7mm 12 gauge and 16 gauge, A few more but to make a long story short.

[Sir_Squab]

Wow... that's horrible....

 

As for gun control... gun control in the U.S. is a bad idea. Guns have been around too long, too many people have them, too many people actually want to have guns to keep them safe from lunatics LIKE this guy. Personally, I think heavy gun control in the states is a great idea, but... there's just no realistic and effective way to actually implement it. It's really, really hard to take something away from the general population.

[nine naked men]

... I wonder what his motive was. It might just be time to rethink gun-control policies.

Guy wants to kill a bunch of people, a theatre premiering a really popular movie would probably be the best place to do it.

 

Rather than rethink gun-control policies, I'd think the mental healthcare system would be a better place to focus their efforts.

[Sy_Accursed]

As always I find America's gun laws far to liberal when it results in things like this. So many argue they have them as they make them safer or feel safer, but statistically countries with guns so available have far more gun crime AND a ridiculously large proportion of murder victims are killed with their own gun so it actually made them less safe. So there just seems to be no upside to it, especially when it is rather regularly compounded by events such as this where people abuse the availability and seem to go on shooting rampages just because.

 

Certainly guns can be gotten illegally if more controls are in place, but even so it makes things like this far less common. Example being UK, whilst gun crime does occur any major incidents like this are few and far between (even when taking things proportionally to allow for the fact US has larger populace the Uk incidents are much rarer). But then how can you change something that is so cultural ingrained due to decades/centuries of it being that way, a factor which is just further compounded when you factor in the unfortunately large slice of american society who seem to be willingly ignorant of facts and instead just fanatically support whatever charismatic person happens to use buzz words that they relate too.

 

Essentially its an unfixable situation really, whilst statistically more gun control is better to try and implement that to Us culture would probably cause more issues than it fixes. Especially seeing as it'd be hard to get guns out of circulation, it's one thing to have gun controls and therefore limited supply; it's a whole different ball park to bring gun control in and therefore still have a mass of guns out there (much of which would likely be stashed away illegally through wilful defiance or simply through older people not realising or lack of clarity on how to deal with the existing gun owners on local authorities part)

[Vezon Dash]

This is absolutely horrible... That could have been me that was shot and killed last night. =/

 

Gun control won't stop people like this. Marijuana and Cocaine control doesn't stop people from using it...

 

 

@Sy_Acc

 

You also have to take into account the types of killings in the US versus the UK. Are there large gangs and crime syndicates in the UK? You have to think that a lot of gun related killing happen in areas with gangs and such as opposed to the common citizen (lunatic or not).

[Gandalf14141]

I know this is no reason for something horrific like this, but he had served and has PTSD. Anonymous reported it on Twitter earlier today. A poor 3 month old was injured as well. Just plain sadening.

[Ned]

Rather than rethink gun-control policies, I'd think the mental healthcare system would be a better place to focus their efforts.

This.

[Riku3220]

I don't see how changing policies (gun control or mental healthcare) is going to fix anything. If a person really wants to go out on a murdering spree then he'll find a way, with or without guns. Changing mental healthcare definitely isn't going to stop anything because in most of these situations nobody even knew the killer had a problem.

[stevepole]

Such a sad event, it's a shame it's going to put such a negative shadow over the film though. I even feel weird for wearing my batman tshirt today..

[Alg]

I don't see how changing policies (gun control or mental healthcare) is going to fix anything. If a person really wants to go out on a murdering spree then he'll find a way, with or without guns. Changing mental healthcare definitely isn't going to stop anything because in most of these situations nobody even knew the killer had a problem.

Might be a good place to start though, especially if Gandalf's post is true. Society as a whole doesn't seem to be very good with mental problems.

[Ned]

I don't see how changing policies (gun control or mental healthcare) is going to fix anything. If a person really wants to go out on a murdering spree then he'll find a way, with or without guns. Changing mental healthcare definitely isn't going to stop anything because in most of these situations nobody even knew the killer had a problem.

Perhaps if we funded research so we'd better understand the causes of psychopath behavior and the signs, we would've known the killer had a problem. And yeah, if what Gandalf said is true, this is even more relevant.

[nine naked men]

I don't see how changing policies (gun control or mental healthcare) is going to fix anything. If a person really wants to go out on a murdering spree then he'll find a way, with or without guns. Changing mental healthcare definitely isn't going to stop anything because in most of these situations nobody even knew the killer had a problem.

Maybe system wasn't the right word for me to use. Just trying to improve the general societal awareness of mental illness, along with making help for the issues more prevalent and less stigmatized is what I was trying to get at. Maybe people who normally would go 'we didn't know anything was up' might notice something if they knew some of the symptoms that schizophrenia or PTSD (for example) present with. Something should be done, and I think it would present a more tangible benefit than the inevitable pissing match people would get into if the right to bear arms or whatever was challenged.

 

 

I don't see how changing policies (gun control or mental healthcare) is going to fix anything. If a person really wants to go out on a murdering spree then he'll find a way, with or without guns. Changing mental healthcare definitely isn't going to stop anything because in most of these situations nobody even knew the killer had a problem.

Perhaps if we funded research so we'd better understand the causes of psychopath behavior and the signs, we would've known the killer had a problem. And yeah, if what Gandalf said is true, this is even more relevant.

This dude having not killed himself could be a valuable step towards that. Most spree killers generally kill themselves/suicide by cop.

[Sy_Accursed]

@Sy_Acc

You also have to take into account the types of killings in the US versus the UK. Are there large gangs and crime syndicates in the UK? You have to think that a lot of gun related killing happen in areas with gangs and such as opposed to the common citizen (lunatic or not).

 

Of course there's gang crime in the Uk and syndicates and all of that, on a proportionally smaller scale and more likely to result in stabbings/beatings than shootings (due to the fact guns are less readily available); but it is there none the less.

[tripsis]

... I wonder what his motive was. It might just be time to rethink gun-control policies.

Guy wants to kill a bunch of people, a theatre premiering a really popular movie would probably be the best place to do it.

Well yeah, but I wonder why he wanted to kill a bunch of people in the first plage.

 

====

 

This is so sad.. I read about it this morning. And to think some of my family lives in Denver :/ Luckily they didn't go to that movie..

[Drazhor]

Absolute disgrace; although when my friends mentioned it- I blamed Bane! Too early? Maybe but regardless of that, this is a sick idea of humankind- to think that somebody would go to this level during a film is just horrible.

[sees_all1]

Can we please show respect to the victims and hold off the policy debate for a while? I feel we should all be showing empathy, and at the very least wait for the complete picture before making hasty generalizations or statements we'll later regret.

 

What happened is a terrible tragedy, and my heart goes out to the victims, their friends and families, along with the parents of the shooter. I can't imagine how they feel.

[Dizzle229]

Ah, the annual psychopath killing spree reigniting the gun control debate.

This. I really can't believe that at least once a year something like this happens, and every year everyone pretends to be absolutely shocked.

[champion]

Ah, the annual psychopath killing spree reigniting the gun control debate.

This. I really can't believe that at least once a year something like this happens, and every year everyone pretends to be absolutely shocked.

Who's pretending?

[Jaybear]

It's a bit disheartening to see stuff like this happen. Can't understand why someone would just go off on a rampage over a movie premier.

[Albel]

Could not believe this when I saw. My thoughts go out to everyone who was effected.