Another in the endless mass shootings in USA - this time Denver

[Peter Lemkin]

A man wearing a gas mask shot and killed ten innocent and unconnected victims at a movie theater in a mall in a Denver suburb. He then apparently fired off some tear [or other] gas and escaped. This just happened and there are no more details yet...but all of these mass shootings seem to follow a pattern that is very disturbing and many could be provocations at the worst and a sign of a very sick society instilled with violence, at best.

Update: Some reports of two gunmen; other reports of only one - one in Police custody. Many more injured than killed - numbers still not confirmed; apparently about fourteen dead and about 20 seriously injured. Shooting took place in the movie theater with the lights off. Seems confirmed some gas was fired before the shooting and perhaps also after.

[Peter Lemkin]

very partial and not up-to-date list...will try to find a more complete one.

March 29, 2009: Robert Stewart, 45, shot and killed eight people at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, N.C. before a police officer shot him and ended the rampage.

March 29, 2009: Devan Kalathat, 42, shot and killed his two children and three other relatives, then killed himself in an upscale neighborhood of Santa Clara, Calif. Kalathat's wife was critically injured.

March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people including his mother, four other relatives, and the wife and child of a local sheriff's deputy across two rural Alabama counties. He then killed himself.

Feb. 14, 2008: Former student Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, fatally shooting five students and wounding 18 others before committing suicide.

Dec. 5, 2007: Robert A. Hawkins, 19, opened fire with a rifle at a Von Maur store in an Omaha, Neb., mall, killing eight people before taking his own life. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, then killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Oct. 2, 2006: Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, shot to death five girls at West Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania, then killed himself.

March 21, 2005: Student Jeffrey Weise, 16, killed nine people, including his grandfather and his grandfather's companion at home. Also included were five fellow students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minn. He then killed himself. Seven students were wounded.

March 12, 2005: Terry Ratzmann, 44, gunned down members of his congregation as they worshipped at the Brookfield Sheraton in Brookfield, Wisconsin, slaying seven and wounding four before killing himself.

March 5, 2001: Charles "Andy" Williams, 15, killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others at Santana High School in Santee, Calif.

Nov. 2, 1999: Copier repairman Byran Uyesugi, 40, fatally shoots seven people at Xerox Corp. in Honolulu. He is convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

July 29, 1999: Former day trader Mark Barton, 44, killed nine people in shootings at two Atlanta brokerage offices, then killed himself.

April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school's library.

May 21, 1998: Two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people hurt when Kip Kinkel, 17, opened fire at a high school in Springfield, Ore., after killing his parents.

March 24, 1998: Andrew Golden, 11, and Mitchell Johnson, 13, killed four girls and a teacher at a Jonesboro, Ark., middle school. Ten others were wounded in the shooting.

Oct. 16, 1991: A deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at a Luby's Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life. 20 others were wounded in the attack.

June 18, 1990: James Edward Pough shoots people at random in a General Motors Acceptance Corp. office in Jacksonville, Fla., killing 10 and wounding four, before killing himself.

July 12, 1976: Edward Charles Allaway, a custodian in the library of California State University, Fullerton, fatally shot seven fellow employees and wounded two others.

Aug. 20, 1986: Pat Sherrill, 44, a postal worker who was about to be fired, shoots 14 people at a post office in Edmond, Okla. He then kills himself.

July 18, 1984: James Oliver Huberty, an out-of-work security guard, kills 21 people in a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif. A police sharpshooter kills Huberty.

May 4, 1970: Four Kent State University students were killed by Ohio National Guard troops during a campus protest of the invasion of Cambodia. Nine people were wounded.

Aug. 1, 1966: Charles Whitman opened fire from the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, killing 16 people and wounding 31.

[Peter Lemkin]

And here a growing list of World-wide mass shootings by one or two persons:

April 1982 - SOUTH KOREA - Police officer Woo Bum Kong went on a drunken rampage in Sang-Namdo with rifles and hand grenades, killing 57 people and wounding 38 before blowing himself up.

August 19, 1987 - BRITAIN - Michael Ryan, a 27-year-old gun fanatic rampaged through the English town of Hungerford, killing 16 people and wounding 11 before shooting himself.

July 1989 - FRANCE - A French farmer shot and killed 14 people including members of his family in the village of Luxiol, near the Swiss border. He was wounded and captured by police.

December 1989 - CANADA - A 25-year-old war movie fan with a grudge against women shot dead 14 young women at the University of Montreal, then killed himself.

November 1990 - NEW ZEALAND - A gun-mad loner killed 11 men, women and children in a 24-hour rampage in the tiny New Zealand seaside village of Aramoana. He was killed by police.

September 1995 - FRANCE - A 16-year-old youth ran amok with a rifle in the town of Cuers, killing 16 people and then himself after an argument with his parents.

March 13, 1996 - BRITAIN - Gunman Thomas Hamilton burst into a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane and shot dead 16 children and their teacher before killing himself.

April 28, 1996 - AUSTRALIA - Martin Bryant unleashed modern Australia's worst mass murder when he shot dead 35 people at the Port Arthur tourist site in the southern state of Tasmania.

April 1999 - USA - Two heavily-armed teenagers went on a rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Denver, shooting 13 students and staff before taking their own lives.

July 1999 - USA - A gunman killed nine people at two brokerages in Atlanta, after apparently killing his wife and two children. He committed suicide five hours later.

June 2001 - NEPAL - Eight members of the Nepalese Royal family were killed in a palace massacre by Crown Prince Dipendra who later turned a gun on himself and died few days later. His youngest brother also died later raising the death toll to 10.

April 26, 2002 - GERMANY - In Erfurt, eastern Germany, 19-year-old Robert Steinhauser opened fire after saying he was not going to take a math test. He killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two pupils and a policeman at the Gutenberg Gymnasium, before killing himself.

October 2002 - USA - John Muhammad and Lee Malvo killed 10 people in sniper-style shooting deaths that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area.

April 16, 2007 - USA - Virginia Tech, a university in Blacksburg, Virginia, became the site of the deadliest rampage in U.S. history when a gunman killed 32 people and himself.

November 7, 2007 - FINLAND - Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse and the principal and himself with a handgun at the Jokela High School near Helsinki.

September 23, 2008 - FINLAND - Student Matti Saari opened fire in a vocational school in Kauhajoki in northwest Finland, killing nine other students and one male staff member before killing himself.

March 11, 2009 - GERMANY - A 17-year-old gunman dressed in black combat gear killed nine students and three teachers at a school near Stuttgart. He also killed one other person at a nearby clinic. He was later killed in a shoot-out with police. Two additional passers-by were killed and two policemen seriously injured, bringing the death toll to 16 including the gunman.

June 2, 2010 - BRITAIN - Gunman Derrick Bird opened fire on people in towns across the rural county of Cumbria. Twelve people were killed and 11 injured. Bird also killed himself.

August 30, 2010 - SLOVAKIA - A gunman shot dead six members of a Roma family and another woman in the Slovak capital Bratislava before killing himself. Fourteen more people were wounded.

April 9, 2011 - NETHERLANDS - Tristan van der Vlis opened fire in the Ridderhof mall in Alphen aan den Rijn, south of Amsterdam, killing six before turning the gun on himself.

July 22, 2011 - NORWAY - Police seize a gunman who killed at least 68 people at a youth summer camp of Norway's ruling political party, on the small, holiday island of Utoeya. Anders Behring Breivik is later charged with the killings, as well as with an earlier bombing in the center of Oslo which killed at least eight people. He appears in a closed court hearing in Oslo on July 25 and is ordered detained for eight weeks in solitary confinement.

[Magda Hassan]

Oh, I wonder how this is going to play out?

Occupy Black Bloc Member James Holmes Shoots Up Aurora Co Movie Theater Killing 12 And Wounding 50.

Friday, July 20, 2012
A lone gunman dressed in riot gear and wearing a gas mask burst into a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., at a midnight showing of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises" and opened fire, killing at least 12 people and injuring at least 50.
The suspect, James Holmes, 24, of Aurora, was caught by police in the parking lot of the Century 16 Movie Theaters, nine miles outside Denver, after police began receiving dozens of 911 calls at 12:39 a.m. MT. Police said the man appeared to have acted alone.
Witnesses in the movie theater said Holmes crashed into the auditorium through an emergency exit about 30 minutes into the film, set off a smoke bomb, and began shooting. Holmes stalked the aisles of the theater, shooting at random, as panicked movie-watchers in the packed auditorium tried to escape, witnesses said.

"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." read more click here.

James Holmes, DOB 12/13/1987, the car he was driving had Tenn license plates. The Batman movie portrays the OWS crowd in a negative vein,the new Batman movie featured the villain as an Occupy Wall Street type. I would first look at the possibility that James Holmes, DOB 12/13/1987, was caught up in the OWS movement took it upon himself to strike back against "THE MAN.

Bill Warner private investigator at http://www.wbipi.com/

[Peter Lemkin]

Ugh, the bad is even worse! Most black bloc types are agents provocateurs...although a few are misguided and not real [thought they call themselves] 'anarchists' - they are only into anarchy, which anarchists are not! If this is an A.P. action it is certainly to pull the curtain on the Occupy Movement - done by you know who, in the end.

...but I have many questions. For one, Bill Warner private investigator at http://www.wbipi.com/ is a very strange site to have this article referenced. Magda, did you find it there...I think not...where did your story come from? Is that investigators url just an advertisement of this kind of crime or?!....

Second, I find it quite strange that the new Batman movie has a bad guy that is Occupy-like....and the two together is a bit much....he wasn't shooting at the producers or even the screen, but innocent idiots watching the propaganda infotainment.

Third, Aurora is the site of another similar shoot-up [the other at a high school].

Fourth, Lets say, for argument sake [only] the shooter was interested in Occupy values and didn't like the depiction of 'Occupy' in the movie....why the hell would he kill 14 and potentially near 50 innocents who were only watching the freaking stupid film making the good [Occupy] into the bad?!

I sense the hand of a Deep Black Op here....will dig deeper in the coming days.
----------------------------------------
Keith Coffman and Stephanie Simon
Reuters

10:08 a.m. CDT, July 20, 2012
AURORA, Colo. (Reuters) - The apartment of the man suspected in the mass shooting at a Denver-area screening of the latest Batman movie is "booby-trapped" with an array of sophisticated material, the local police chief said Friday.

Speaking at the scene where police were working to gain access to the apartment, Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates said: "His apartment is booby-trapped. We are trying to determine how to disarm the flammable or explosive material. We could be here for hours or days. The pictures are fairly disturbing. It looks very sophisticated, how it's booby-trapped. It could be a very long wait."

A masked gunman killed 12 people at a midnight premiere of the new Batman movie in a suburb of Denver early on Friday, sparking pandemonium when he hurled a gas canister into the auditorium and opened fire on moviegoers.

About 50 others including children were hurt in the attack on the showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" in a mall in the Aurora suburb, some of whom were treated for the effects of tear gas, hospital officials said.

"This is one of the most horrific nights I've ever had to work," said Comilla Sasson, an emergency doctor at University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora where 22 patients ranging in age from three months to 45 years arrived in private cars, police cars and ambulances.

Police took the suspect into custody in the parking lot behind the theater, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told a news conference.

Multiple media outlets named the suspect as James Eagan Holmes, 24, though Reuters could not independently confirm his identity.

The gunman appeared at the front of the theater during the movie and released a canister which let out a hissing sound before gunfire erupted, police said.

Dozens of police were at the scene, and the authorities evacuated the area while they checked for any explosive devices. They said there was no evidence of a second gunman.

Police also searched the suspect's apartment building, breaking into a second-floor window after officers had been lifted in a crane, looking for explosives after the suspect made statements about explosives in his home. Police and sheriff's deputies from several jurisdictions swarmed the scene with heavy weaponry trucks from the bomb squad.

"When we got out of the theater it was just chaos. There was this one who guy was on all fours crawling. There was this girl spitting up blood," witness Donovan Tate told KCNC television. "There were bullet holes in some people's backs, some people's arms. There was this one guy who was stripped down to just his boxers. It looked like he was shot in the back or something. It was crazy."

Confusion reigned as shooting broke out during an action scene in the summer blockbuster, one of more highly anticipated films of the year. He may have blended in with other movie-goers who wore costumes as heroes and villains.

"He looked like he was in the military or like he was a SWAT person so he just kind of blended in with the chaos of the crowd. People thought he was probably like a cop or something," witness Jennifer Seeger told NBC's "Today."

"He came in and threw in the gas can and then I knew it was real. He shot the ceiling and right after he shot the ceiling he pointed the gun right at me. At that point I dove into the aisle. And I got lucky because he didn't shoot me," she said.

President Barack Obama, who was notified of the shooting early on Friday morning by his homeland security adviser, John Brennan, urged Americans to "stand together" with the people of Aurora in the hours and days to come.

"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," Obama said in a statement.

"As we do when confronted by moments of darkness and challenge, we must now come together as one American family," he added.

MEMORIES OF COLUMBINE

Colorado has suffered mass killings in the past. In 1999, two students opened fire at Columbine High School in the suburb of Littleton, also near Denver, killing 12 students and a teacher.

-----------------------------------------
The attack occurred in Theater 9 at the Century 16 movie theater in the Town Center at Aurora shopping center. The shooter is reported to have entered the theater through an emergency door wearing a gas mask and bulletproof vest and deployed a tear gas canister before opening fire. [1][3][6][5][7][8][9][10][2] Some bullets penetrated the wall of the cinema and injured people in the adjoining Theater 8, where the same film was being screened.[5]
Victims

Ten people died at the scene, and two people were pronounced dead in local hospitals.[5] Injured people were treated at Children's Hospital, Denver Health Medical Center, Medical Center of Aurora, Swedish Hospital, and University Hospital,[11] as well as at a makeshift hospital set up at the scene of the attack.[12] Uninjured witnesses were transported to Gateway High School for de-briefing. The victims' ages ranged from 3 months to 45 years, with the 3-month-old boy being treated at University Hospital[12][13] and discharged.[14]
Suspect

The alleged shooter, 24 year old James Eagan Holmes (born December 13, 1987),[4][15][16] was taken into police custody.[17] He was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and gas mask at the time of the shooting. He was found next to his car in the theater parking lot with a rifle and handgun, and he did not resist arrest.[18] Once apprehended, the suspect told authorities about explosives in his residence in North Aurora.[14] Aurora police chief Dan Oates said that police were treating the shooter's home, five miles from the scene of the crime,[11] as a site where explosives might be present.[3] According to the police, Holmes himself told them that he had booby-trapped his apartment before heading to the theater; as a result, police evacuated five nearby buildings.[19]

ABC spoke with a woman who identified herself as Holmes' mother, who told them she had not yet been contacted by the authorities, but expressed concern that her son was involved and said "you have the right man".[14][20] He was a former medical student at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. [21]
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SAN DIEGO. (AP) The California family of the suspect in a mass shooting at a Colorado movie theater says their hearts go out to those involved.

Police in San Diego read a statement Friday morning from family members of 24-year-old James Holmes, who graduated from high school in the San Diego area.

The family asked the media to respect their privacy. They say they're cooperating with authorities in San Diego and Aurora, Colo., and are trying to process everything.

San Diego police spokeswoman Andra Brown says there's nothing to suggest the family had any involvement.

A spokeswoman for the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver says Holmes was a student there until last month but didn't know why he withdrew.
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Detailed MSM overview here !!!!
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One woman said her friend would not watch the premiere at the cinema because of safety concerns.

Another witness said it would be difficult for security guards to pick an offender out of the crowd because everybody dressed in costume for the Batman premiere.

[Peter Lemkin]

The more I hear about and think of this 'incident', the less of it makes sense or fits 'together'. A medical student?! Quit medical school recently?! An Occupy member? Black bloc medical student from Occupy? Booby-trapped his apartment [police say it will still be hours before they get past the sophisticated explosives et al.] and wearing body armor and a gas mask?! Setting off tear or CS gas and randomly shooting up to 50 people in the dark of a movie - killing at least 12?! In Aurora, CO - home of the infamous Columbine High School Shooting [and a known area for intelligence operatives in the Denver area {I have this information and have not disclosed prior}]?! From San Diego [home of Naval Intelligence and the SEALs and other special forces, as well as some of the 911 'terrorists'?! Yet, this killer who booby traps his flat gives himself up without a fight?!

Nothing here fits......nothing.:darthvader::joystick: ....unless this was a Black Op.

[Lauren Johnson]

sophisticated explosives

He no doubt got the training to do that training in med school.

[Keith Millea]

Well,the chicken shit wasn't brave enough to kill himself,so at least we have a "LIVE" shooter in custody.Will he talk?Probably,unless the other inmates serve him jail block justice.

[Peter Lemkin]

It gets MORE INTERESTING - he wasn't in Medical School...but in a PhD program in NEUROSCIENCE....hint, hint, hint!!!!...

AURORA, Colo. -- A graduate student in a gas mask barged into a crowded Denver-area theater during a midnight showing of the new Batman movie Friday, hurled a gas canister and then opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring at least 50 others in one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history.

When the smoke began to spread, some moviegoers thought it was a stunt that was part of the "The Dark Knight Rises," one of the most highly anticipated films of the summer. They saw a silhouette of a person in the haze near the screen, pointing a gun at the crowd and then shooting.

"There were bullet (casings) just falling on my head. They were burning my forehead," Jennifer Seeger said, adding that the gunman, dressed like a SWAT team member, fired steadily, stopping only to reload.

"Every few seconds it was just: Boom, boom, boom," she said. "He would reload and shoot and anyone who would try to leave would just get killed."

The suspect was taken into custody near a car behind the theater and was identified by federal law enforcement officials as 24-year-old James Holmes.

Holmes was studying neuroscience in a Ph.D. program at the University of Colorado-Denver, university spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said. Holmes enrolled a year ago and was in the process of withdrawing at the time of the shootings, Montgomery said.

Authorities gave no motive for the attack. The FBI said there was no indication of ties to any terrorist groups.

Holmes had an assault rifle, a shotgun and two pistols, a federal law enforcement official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still unfolding.

FBI agents and police used a hook and ladder fire truck to reach Holmes' apartment in Aurora, police Chief Dan Oates said. They put a camera at the end of a 12-foot pole inside the apartment and discovered the unit was booby-trapped. Authorities evacuated five buildings as they tried to figure how to disarm the flammable and explosive material.

At least 24 people were being treated at Denver-area hospitals, some of them for chemical exposure apparently related to canisters thrown by the gunman. Some of those hurt were children, including a 4-month-old baby, who was treated a hospital and released.

Police released a statement from Holmes' family: "Our hearts go out to those who were involved in this tragedy and to the families and friends of those involved."

The movie opened across the world Friday with midnight showings in the U.S. The shooting prompted officials to cancel the red-carpet premiere in Paris, with workers pulling down the display at a theater on the Champs-Elysees. Around the U.S., police and some movie theaters -- including Dallas-based Studio Movie Grill -- stepped up security for daytime showings of the movie, though many fans waiting in line said they were not worried about their safety.

President Barack Obama said he was saddened by the "horrific and tragic shooting," pledging that his administration was "committed to bringing whoever was responsible to justice, ensuring the safety of our people, and caring for those who have been wounded."

It was the worst mass shooting in the U.S. since the Nov. 5, 2009, attack at Fort Hood, Texas. An Army psychiatrist was charged with killing 13 soldiers and civilians and wounding more than two dozen others.

In Colorado, it was the deadliest since the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999, when two students opened fire in the Denver suburb of Littleton, killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves. Columbine High is about 12 miles from the theater.

Friday's attack began shortly after midnight at the multiplex theater.

The film has several scenes of public mayhem a hallmark of superhero movies. In one scene, the main villain Bane leads an attack on the stock exchange and, in another, leads a shooting and bombing rampage on a packed football stadium.

The gunman released a gas that smelled like pepper spray from a green canister, Seeger said. "I thought it was showmanship. I didn't think it was real," she said.

Seeger said she was in the second row, about four feet from the gunman, when he 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 of about 14 "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."

Witness Shayla Roeder said she saw a teenage girl on the ground bleeding outside the theater. "She just had this horrible look in her eyes. .... We made eye contact and I could tell she was not all right," Roeder said.

Police, ambulances and emergency crews swarmed on the scene after frantic calls started flooding the 911 switchboard. Officers came running in and telling people to leave the theater, Salina Jordan told the Denver Post. She said some police were carrying and dragging bodies.

Hayden Miller told KUSA-TV that he heard several shots. "Like little explosions going on and shortly after that we heard people screaming," he told the station. Hayden said at first he thought it was part of a louder movie next door. But then he saw "people hunched over leaving theater."

[Peter Lemkin]

A gunman opened fire early Friday at a suburban Denver movie theatre complex on the opening night of the latest Batman movie, killing 12 people and and injuring 59 others, police said.

The gunman, who is in custody, stood at the front of the theatre and fired into the crowd around 12:30 a.m. MT at a multiplex theatre in a mall in Aurora, a community of about 327,000 people about 16 kilometres east of downtown Denver.

Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said police haven't been able to pinpoint how many shots were fired in the attack.

"There were many, many rounds fired," he said during a news conference on Friday afternoon.

Police, ambulances and emergency crews swarmed on the scene after frantic calls started flooding the 911 switchboard.

Witnesses shared dramatic accounts of the ordeal, from ducking the gunman's bullets to seeing the lifeless bodies lying on the floor.

"There were bullet (casings) just falling on my head. They were burning my forehead," Jennifer Seeger said, adding that the gunman, dressed like a SWAT team member, fired steadily, stopping only to reload. "Every few seconds it was just: Boom, boom, boom," she said. "He would reload and shoot and anyone who would try to leave would just get killed."
James Holmes, 24, is the suspect in a shooting attack which killed 12 people in a suburb of Denver, according to law enforcement officials.


[ATTACH=CONFIG]3886[/ATTACH](The University of Colorado/Reuters)
Number of injured rises

Authorities had pegged the number of injured at 38 earlier in the day, but Oates revised the total upwards later in the day.

The youngest victim was a three-month-old baby.

Officers found the suspected gunman, who has been identified as 24-year-old James Holmes, next to his car behind the theatre.

The suspect wore a gas mask, a ballistic helmet and vest as well as leg, groin and throat protectors, Oates said, and had an AR-15 military-style, semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun and two pistols.

Oates said Holmes wore body armour and used an assault rifle, a shotgun and a Glock handgun.

Holmes graduated from high school in the San Diego area and had enrolled at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2011. He was "in the process of withdrawing" from the school's graduate neurosciences program, the university said in a statement.

There was no immediate word of any motive behind Friday's shooting, and Holmes' family issued a statement on Friday, expressing their condolences to the victims and saying that they were co-operating with authorities.

"Our hearts go out to those who were involved in this tragedy and to the families and friends of those involved," the statement said. "We are still trying to process this information and we appreciate that people will respect our privacy."
'We heard people screaming'

The suspect spoke of "possible explosives in his residence. We are dealing with that potential threat," Oates said, without providing details on where that was.

He said police also checked for explosives in the parking lot and at the Century 16 theatre and secured those areas.
Judy Goos hugs her daughter's friend, Isaiah Bow, 20, while eyewitnesses Emma Goos, 19, left, and Terrell Wallin, 20, right, gather outside a high school where people were brought for questioning Friday after a shooting a Denver-area movie theatre. (Barry Gutierrez/Associated Press)

Police used a hook-and-ladder fire truck to put a camera on a pole through a window in the suspect's third-floor apartment, which is located about six kilometres from the theatre. They found the aparment to be booby-trapped, prompting five buildings in the area to be evacuated as authorities attempted to disarm flammable and explosive material.

Witness Hayden Miller told KUSA-TV that he was inside theatre 16 and heard several shots.

"Like little explosions going on and shortly after that we heard people screaming," he told the station.

Hayden said at first he thought it was part of a louder movie next door. But then he saw "people hunched over leaving [the] theatre."
Gun pointed at face of witness

A woman who escaped the shooting at a Denver suburb movie theater says the shooter pointed a gun at her face but then shot people seated behind her.

Jennifer Seeger, 24, says she was in the second row, just over a metre from the gunman. She says she "was just a deer in headlights" and ducked to the ground.

Seeger says bullet casings were falling on her head and burning her forehead as the gunman fired steadily, except when he stopped to reload.

She says it was "boom, boom, boom" every few seconds and the gunman shot anyone who tried to leave. Seeger says she began crawling toward an exit when she saw a girl about 14 years old "lying lifeless on the stairs."

Associated Press

Witnesses in other theatres reported seeing bullets come through the walls and hearing moans.