‘HE SAID HE WAS THE JOKER’
Twelve dead, 59 injured, one arrested after cinema shooting
Clouds of gas burst out inside screen 9 of the Century 16 movie theatre and a man stepped through the mist dressed in full body armour, helmet and mask.
For a few seconds, some of the moviegoers thought it was a stunt associated with the film on screen — the premiere of the latest Batman epic, The Dark Knight Rises.
Then James Eagan Holmes, who would later tell police he was the Joker, allegedly began shooting.
“There were bullet [casings] just falling on my head. They were burning my forehead,” Jennifer Seeger said, adding that the gunman fired steadily except when he stopped to reload.
“Every few seconds it was just boom, boom, boom,” Ms. Seeger said. “He would reload and shoot and anyone who would try to leave would just get killed.”
Twelve people died and 59 were injured at the theatre in Aurora, Col., in one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history. The death toll is expected to increase because of the seriousness of some of the injured.
Mr. Holmes, a 24-year-old neuroscience graduate student, was arrested within minutes in the theatre’s parking lot. Police later found his apartment al- legedly booby-trapped with tripwires linked to chemical and incendiary devices.
“It clearly looks like a deranged individual. He has his hair painted red. He said he was the Joker, obviously the enemy of Batman,” said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly after speaking with the Aurora police chief.
The theatre was packed with people for the midnight showing of the highly anticipated Batman film. It is understood Mr. Holmes had bought a ticket and was in the theatre along with children who were dressed as Batman.
About 30 minutes into the film he allegedly opened an exit door and put on the protective gear. Police Chief Dan Oates said he was dressed in a military helmet, bulletproof vest and leggings, a groin protector and a gas mask.
He allegedly went back into the theatre armed with an AR15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a Glock handgun and threw two canisters containing gas or some kind of irritant.
“I thought it was showmanship. I didn’t think it was real,” Ms. Seeger said.
Some witnesses at first believed he had come dressed as Bane, the villain of The Dark Knight Rises.
Ms. Seeger said she was in the second row when the gunman pointed a gun at her face. At first, “I was just a deer in headlights. I didn’t know what to do,” she said. Then she ducked to the ground as the gunman shot people seated behind her. She said she began crawling toward an exit when she saw a girl about 14 years old “lying lifeless on the stairs.” She saw a man with a bullet wound in his back and tried to check his pulse, but “I had to go. I was going to get shot.”
Shayla Roeder said she saw a young teenage girl on the ground bleeding outside the theatre. “She just had this horrible look in her eyes.... We made eye contact and I could tell she was not all right,” Ms. Roeder said.
Jordan Crofter, 19, said he had felt lucky to have snagged a seat in the front row at the midnight screening. When he first saw the man come through the exit, he also thought it was part of the movie.
“He walked in so casually, like he knew what he was doing,” Mr. Crofter said. “I heard two pops. Everyone was distracted. That was when the panic and the chaos started.
“He started shooting, and everyone ducked and started
He walked in so casually, like he knew what he was doing
screaming. He looked like he was ready to go into battle. It was like he was walking around and having fun. Emotionless.”
A tearful Patricia Legarreta, 25, described how she was hit in the leg as she escaped with her daughter Azariah, 4, and four-month-old Ethan.
“He [the killer] was heading towards my daughter,” she said. “Had I not moved I don’t know what would have happened to her. It was horrible, so scary. A pain went through my ankle and up my leg.”
Her partner, Jamie Rohrs, 25, jumped six metres from a balcony with Ethan in his arms. He said: “I thought he was going to shoot the baby so I just jumped over the side. There were gunshots flashing to my right and people were falling, it was like a dream.”
Chandler Brannon, 25, escaped by playing dead.
He said, “Me and my girlfriend ducked down behind the chairs with a lot of other people.... We stayed down behind the chairs because we were afraid to get up and we played dead.
“We could hear screaming and chairs being broken around us so we just figured we would stay down. There were about 50 to 75 gunshots, we were playing dead for about 45 seconds or a minute. After that was over someone said he was gone. I helped a guy down the stairs and one guy had been shot in the head. It was just crazy.”
Among the injured was a fourmonth-old baby, who was well enough to be allowed home from hospital Friday, and children as young as six.
“I saw one girl covered in blood,” said Alex Milano. “I don’t know whose little girl that was, but my heart goes out to them. A cop came walking through the front door ... holding a little girl in his arms and she wasn’t moving.”
Tanner Coon, who was in the cinema with a friend and the friend’s 12-year-old brother, said the gunman fired off a volley of rounds, then there was a pause and a “period of quietness when everybody started running out.”
He said: “I slipped on some blood and landed on a lady. I shook her and said we need to go. There was no response so I presume she was dead.”
Other witnesses reported seeing Mr. Holmes begin the shooting spree with his shotgun, and once it was empty he calmly dropped it to the floor, grabbed a rifle strapped to his back and went on firing, then later used a pistol.
He allegedly began building up his arsenal in May, buying his guns legally from two shops. Cellphone footage taken in the cinema lobby shows survivors, many of them in bloodstained clothes, screaming and crying as they fled.
The Pentagon said some military members were either killed or wounded. Aurora is home to a large Defence Department satellite intelligence operation at Buckley Air Force Base.
As police officers arriving on the scene they used their patrol cars to ferry the injured to hospitals. Mr. Holmes offered no resistance as he was arrested next to his Hyundai car.
The Aurora police chief said Mr. Holmes talked about “possible explosives in his residence.” When police got to his third-floor apartment they removed the window and found the booby trap Mr. Holmes had allegedly left for them.
“His apartment is booby-trapped with various incendiary and chemical devices and tripwires,” said Chief Oates, adding that it may take days to defuse the devices. “It’s something I’ve never seen before.”
President Barack Obama said he was saddened by the “horrific and tragic shooting,” and he cut short campaigning to return to the White House.
Mr. Holmes was studying neuroscience in a PhD program at the University of Colorado-Denver graduate school, university spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said. He was in the process of withdrawing at the time of the shootings.
Police released a written statement from Mr. Holmes’ family: “Our hearts go out to those who were involved in this tragedy and to the families and friends of those involved.”
The massacre was the worst mass shooting in the U.S. since the 2007 Virginia Tech campus killing, in which 32 people died. Just 20 kilometres from the cinema is Columbine High School, where two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher in 1999.