14 killed, 50 wounded at Colorado movie theater

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Ryan Parker and Kurtis Lee - The Denver Post


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AURORA — Fourteen people were killed and about 50 were injured early Friday when shots rang out at an Aurora movie theater during a premiere showing of the new Batman movie.

A 24-year-old suspect in is custody and an apartment building in north Aurora connected to the suspect was being evacuated and searched for possible explosives, according to Police Chief Dan Oates.

Oates said there was no evidence of a second suspect, but the man in custody had made a statement about possible explosives in his residence.

Ten people died at the scene and five others died at hospitals.

Sometime before 1 a.m., police received reports of gunshots at the Century 16 Movie Theaters at the Aurora Town Center.

Dozens of ambulances and police vehicles were outside the mall, where three theaters were showing "The Dark Knight Rises." Most of the wounded were at Theater 9.

Police from all over the metro area had been called to the scene.

Witnesses told reporters that the gunman was masked and clad in black.

"Witnesses tell us he released some sort of canister." Oates said. "They heard a hissing sound and some gas emerged and the gunman opened fire."

A witness, Bejamin Fernandez, 30, said he was watching the movie when he heard a series of explosions. He said that people ran from the theater and there were gunshots as police shouted 'get down!"

Frenandez said he saw people falling, including one young girl.

Salina Jordan, 19, was in Theater 8 and saw people hit in her theater. She said one girl was struck in cheek, others in stomach including a girl who looked to be around 9-years-old.

Jordan said it sounded like firecrackers until someone ran into Theater 8 yelling "they're shooting out here!"

The police came running in, telling people to run out. Some police were carrying, dragging bodies, she said.

Police set up a command post near the Dillards department store and were interviewing hundreds of possible witnesses. Many were taken by buses to Gateway High School for questioning.

Police spokeswoman Cassidee Carlson says "the scene is still very active and we have little information for release at this time."

Robert Jones, 28, was in Theatre 9 when the shooting started.

Jones said when he first saw smoke billowing from the front of the theatre, he thought it was a special effect. Shots rang out almost immediately after.

"I thought it was pretty much the end of the world," Roberts said.

Roberts stayed flat on the ground until police came into the theatre.

Tammi Stevens said her son, 18-year-old Jacob Stevens, was inside Theatre 9 when the shooting started. Stevens was waiting for her son at Gateway High School while police interviewed him.

Jacob told his mom that he saw a guy walk into the theater wearing body armor and throw some sort of cannister that then emitted some sort of gas.

"You let your kids go to a late night movie...you never think something like this would happen," Stevens said.

President Obama was notified about the shooting by homeland security adviser John Brennan.

Swedish Medical Center spokeswoman Nicole Williams says two people injured at the theater have arrived at the hospital in critical condition.

Officials with Children's Hospital Colorado said six victims, ages 6 to 31 years old, have arrived at the hospital. Updates on their conditions were not available.

She says emergency workers said there could be several more patients.

Denver Health Medical Center currently has six patients from the Aurora shooting. One is in critical condition and the other five are in currently in fair condition.

[Yt Trash]

Man you can't even enjoy a midnight viewing of a movie nowadays.....sad!

[Dovah]

What the hell? I'm glad the guy didn't shoot himself too so we can find out why.

[Loser]

Probably some form of mental sickness, that would of otherwise precluded him from gun ownership if common sense gun laws were in effect :roll:

[redred]

any houses to view around there lance?

[Dovah]

I just hope he doesn't say anything about the government. Politicians would jump to use him as an excuse to take freedoms away or further label those who question the government as extremists.

[MrsM]

Wow - very sad :(

[Teh One Who Knocks]

ABC News


The young man who is in custody after allegedly gunning down 12 people in a mass shooting spree overnight in Aurora, Colorado has been identified as local resident James Holmes, according to federal authorities.

Law enforcement officials and witnesses told ABC News Holmes, 24, wore what appeared to be a bullet-proof vest and riot-type mask as he opened fire in a movie theater with three weapons at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises." In addition to the 12 deaths, at least 50 people were injured, according to police.

A San Diego woman who identified herself as James Holmes' mother told ABC News she had awoken unaware of the shooting and had not yet been contacted by authorities. She immediately expressed concern that her son may have been involved.

"You have the right person," she said, apparently speaking on gut instinct. "I need to call the police... I need to fly out to Colorado."

Local news reports showed aerial video of police cautiously searching Holmes' apartment, some five miles from the Century Aurora 16 theater, as the suspect reportedly told police he had explosives inside.

Witnesses said that the man appeared at the front of the theater about 20 minutes into the movie with a rifle, handgun and gas mask. He then threw a canister that released some kind of gas, after which a hissing sound ensued, and he then opened fire on the crowd packed into the early-morning screening of the film.

"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."

"The gunshot continued to go on and on and then after we didn't hear anything," the couple told the man. "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."

The FBI said approximately 100 of its agents are on the scene assisting with the ongoing investigation.

[Lambchop]

I read that he was angry that the film was all sold out. Others are saying it is a response to the poor critical assessments of the film :dunno:


According to local reports the gunman carried out the shooting because the new Batman movie was sold out. The suspect had no history with police apart from a traffic ticket, police reported.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2176377/The-Dark-Knight-Rises-screening-shooting-Gunman-gas-mask-shoots-dead-12-people--including-children--midnight-screening-Batman-premiere-Denver.html#ixzz21Alvjqyd

[Godfather]

Wow... kinda speechless. This is so disturbing. I can't even imagine how awful that must have been. :(

[Noilly Pratt]

Wow... kinda speechless. This is so disturbing. I can't even imagine how awful that must have been. :(

Same here...awful.

I was in a movie theatre in New West when a guy pulled a knife on another guy and that was bad enough to witness. Never went back there...

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Police are trying to search the suspect's apartment, but it's allegedly booby trapped according to the police reports

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Liz Goodwin, Yahoo! News | The Lookout


http://i.imgur.com/zA137.jpg

Aurora police and FBI officials told 9News Friday morning that the suspect in Thursday's movie theater mass shooting has "booby-trapped" his apartment with a sophisticated set up of flammable devices that could take authorities days to disarm.

"It's pretty sophisticated the way it's booby trapped," Aurora's police chief Dan Oates told 9News. "We could be here for hours, we could be here for days."

Five buildings around the apartment of suspect James Holmes, 24, have been evacuated while authorities try to enter. The fire department is standing by. Holmes was a Phd student in neuroscience at the University of Colorado at Denver, according to university spokesman Dan Meyers. He was in the process of withdrawing from the school, he said, and attended class at the medical school campus. The AP reports that Holmes had an assault rifle, shotgun, and two pistols.

[Acid Trip]

One word to describe this kid: Disturbed

[FBD]

and of course people would look at you strangely for concealed carrying in a movie theater - what could possibly go wrong?

[DemonGeminiX]

I heard the dude was a former medical student. He dropped out last year. High stress atmosphere. Every doctor I've ever known has said that they knew at least one person that had a nervous breakdown during medical school.

Terrible.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

http://i.imgur.com/TO4JI.jpg

The suspect

[DemonGeminiX]

Looks a lot like a guy that went to high school with me. He was a douchebag too.

[Muddy]

He looks like a normal person to me..

[DemonGeminiX]

Yeah, he could be anybody you walk past on the street on any given day and would never notice.

[Hal-9000]

sounds horrible...

I just heard about an unbelievable coincidence. Apparently one of the girls in the Denver theater was injured or killed...was in another theater in another city, watching a different movie and someone broke in and tried to hurt people there. She got away unscathed from the first movie incident, went to Denver and then this happened.

I'll try to find the story as I think she was one of the dead in Denver..

[Teh One Who Knocks]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/movie-theater-shooting-victim-jessica-ghawi-narrowly-missed-143201637.html

Here you go Hal

[Hal-9000]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/movie-theater-shooting-victim-jessica-ghawi-narrowly-missed-143201637.html

Here you go Hal

Thanks Lance....she was in a Toronto mall where a lunatic opened up (not watching a movie), then travels to the States and gets shot in a movie theater.

Makes you wonder about fate and destiny sometimes...:|

[PorkChopSandwiches]

http://cdn.washingtonexaminer.biz/cache/r620-7287416e80922620fccb76fdf86fa724.jpg

[PorkChopSandwiches]

http://cdn.washingtonexaminer.biz/cache/r960-788e9f646b444b9bb14933109f5e81b1.jpg

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By CLAYTON SANDELL, KEVIN DOLAK, and COLLEEN CURRY | Good Morning America


Twelve people were killed and 59 were injured in Aurora, Colo., during a sold-out midnight premier of the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" when 24-year-old James Holmes unloaded four weapons' full of ammunition into the unsuspecting crowd.

The number of casualties makes the incident the largest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Holmes, a graduate student at a nearby college with a clean arrest record, entered the movie auditorium wearing a ballistics helmet, bullet-proof vest, bullet-proof leggings, gas mask and gloves. He detonated multiple smoke bombs, and then began firing at viewers in the sold-out auditorium, police said today.

Bullets from the spree tore through the theater and into adjoining theaters, where at least one other person was struck and injured. Ten members of "The Dark Knight Rises" audience were killed in theater, while two others died later at area hospitals. Numerous patrons were in critical condition at six local hospitals, the Aurora police said this afternoon.

Holmes was apprehended within minutes of the 12:39 a.m. shooting at his car behind the theater, where police found him in full riot gear and carrying three weapons, including a AR-15 assault rifle, which can hold upwards of 100 rounds, a Remington 12 gauge shot gun, and a .40 Glock handgun. A fourth handgun was found in the vehicle. Agents from the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms are tracing the weapons.

According to police sources, Holmes told the officers arresting him that he was "The Joker," referring to the villain in the second installment of the Batman movie trilogy, "The Dark Knight." He also warned police that he had booby-trapped his apartment, leading officers to evacuate the Aurora apartment building.

Police Chief Dan Oates said today that police and bomb squads have found a large number of explosive devices and trip wires at Holmes' apartment and have not yet decided how to proceed without setting off explosions.

"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.

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.

Witnesses in the movie theater said Holmes saw smoke and heard gunshots that they thought were part 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.

At one point the shooter exited the theater only to wait outside the doors and pick off patrons as they tried to exit, witness Jennifer Seeger told "Good Afternoon America."

"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.

The suspected shooter will face his first court appearance next week, according to district attorney Carol Chambers.

Holmes, originally of San Diego, moved to Aurora to pursue his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado medical center, living just blocks from the hospital in an apartment that police say is now laced with explosives and being searched by HazMat teams.

Federal law enforcement sources tell ABC News that Holmes bought a ticket to the movie, slipped out of the theater once it began and propped open the emergency exit before gathering his weapons and gear and coming back into the theater. Once inside, he opened fire.

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."

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.

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."

[Hal-9000]

I know there's no way to predict these wingnuts but I really hope this doesn't start a trend for other loonies and this movie....

[minz]

This is just so sad, I hope all of the injured recover. :(

[Hal-9000]

how could you ever relax in a movie theater again? :|

[Pony]

I'm curious if all if the injured were shot or some got hurt or trampled trying to get the hell out of there.

[KevinD]

Unbelievable. I don't have words to say what I'm feeling right now..Sadness, anger, more...

[Dovah]

how could you ever relax in a movie theater again? :|

It might seem hard, but think about how many people die in car crashes everyday. Yet most of us still drive. And after 9/11 people resumed flying with confidence (with "help" from the TSA).