AURORA: James Eagan Holmes, 24, is accused of storming into a theater in a suburban Denver multiplex just after Friday clad head-to-toe in black body armor and a gas mask and tossing smoke bombs into the audience before shooting seemingly at random.
The graduate student, who authorities said had dyed his hair red and called himself “The Joker” in a reference to Batman’s comic-book nemesis, was taken into custody outside the theater minutes after the attack.
Police probing a Colorado shooting rampage prepared on Saturday to send in a robot to detonate what they called a sophisticated booby-trap in the apartment of a man accused of killing 12 people at a screening of the new “Batman” film.
The massacre stunned Aurora and much of the nation, evoking memories of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, 27 km from Aurora, where two students opened fire and killed 12 students and a teacher.
It also resonated in the US presidential race as both President Barack Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, toned down their campaigns, pulled their ads from Colorado and dedicated their scheduled events to the victims yesterday.
Chris Henderson, Aurora’s deputy fire chief, said Holmes’ living room was found crisscrossed with trip wires connected to what appeared to be plastic bottles containing an unknown liquid.
A law enforcement source told Reuters the suspect had also set a timer to turn on loud music in his apartment playing the same song over and over again apparently in an attempt to prompt a complaint and lure police into a trap.
“If he was shot and killed, it is without a doubt that these … booby traps were there to murder and inflict casualties upon first responders,” the source said.
Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said authorities had determined that the apartment was too dangerous for officers to enter and would send a robot in on Saturday to detonate the explosives after consulting with federal authorities.
Holmes grew up in a middle-class San Diego neighborhood and earned a degree in neuroscience from the University of California at Riverside before seeking his graduate degree from the University of Colorado.
People who knew him described him as kind toward children but said he had trouble finding work.
Holmes was described as bright but was in the process of dropping out of his graduate program at the time of the shooting, according to the university.
Billy Kromka, 19, a pre-med student at the University of Colorado at Boulder who served as a research assistant alongside Holmes for several months last year, said he was astonished at the news. “He basically was socially awkward but not to the degree that would warrant suspicion of mass murder or any atrocity of this magnitude,” Kromka said Holmes never talked politics or became animated about any particular subject, but appeared to be influenced by movies and the media and played online role-playing video games.
But New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said he “clearly looks like a deranged individual.” “He had his hair painted red. He said he was The Joker, obviously the enemy of Batman,” Kelly told reporters, referring to a character in the Batman comic and cinematic universe known for committing acts of random, chaotic violence.
Holmes’ family issued a statement of sympathy for the victims, saying, “Our heart goes out” to their loved ones, while they also asked for privacy from the media while they “process this information.” Meanwhile, as darkness fell across Denver, a row of prayer candles and a dozen or so bouquets of flowers were clustered under a single hand-written sign that read: “7/20 gone not forgotten.” The theater remained cordoned off with police vehicles lining the perimeter, and Oates said officers would be on hand for future showings of the movie in the city.
In NY, police pledged to deploy officers at all 40 theaters where the film was playing, partly as a precaution against “copycats.” L.A police said they would increase patrols at screenings too. Director Christopher Nolan called the shooting an “unbearably savage” event for which he expressed “profound sorrow” to the victims and their families. (Reuters)