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REUTERS/RJ Sangosti/Pool/Files
Colorado shooting suspect James Eagan Holmes makes his first court appearance in Aurora, Colo., in this file photo taken July 23, 2012.
James Holmes' personality and behavior during interviews raised concerns at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he was rejected as a candidate for the Ph.D. neuroscience program, documents show. Holmes is charged with murder in the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo.
University officials on Thursday released Holmes' application, which included interview review forms filled out by those who spoke with Holmes when he visited Alabama in February 2011. His rejection letter was dated March 31, 2011.
Professors noted Holmes was an "excellent applicant," but shy. One professor noted "he may be extremely smart, but difficult to engage … Hard to tell how interested he is.” Another wrote: “I think he is a top student to recruit. His personality may not be as engaging as some applicants, but he is going to be a leader in the future.”
Read James Holmes' application to UAB and resulting responses (PDF is 30 pages)
Holmes later enrolled as a first-year Ph.D. student in a neuroscience program at the University of Colorado at Denver. He withdrew about six weeks before the July 20 rampage at an Aurora movie theater. Police say the 24-year-old, wearing body armor and a gas mask and heavily armed, opened fire on an audience of the opening night of the Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises," killing 12 and wounding 58.
The University of Iowa also rejected Holmes, according to KUSA-TV, an NBC News affiliate in Denver. University records released last week show Holmes was interviewed, but neuroscience program director Daniel Tranel wrote in an email: "James Holmes: Do NOT offer admission under any circumstances.”
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Psychology professor Mark Blumberg followed up with a separate email two days later to say he backed Tranel. "Don't admit," he wrote about Holmes. Blumberg recommended admission for two others, according to KUSA-TV.
Holmes' application to UAB contained glowing recommendation letters written by professors who worked with Holmes at the University of California, Riverside, KUSA-TV reported.
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"James is among the top 1% of Honors students and is self-motivated, intelligent and driven," one letter stated. Another read: "I found James to be determined, hardworking, while at the same time inquisitive, showing a clear interest in the material." Names of the professors had been redacted in the documents.
In his application to UAB, Holmes wrote in his letter that he aspired “to become a cognitive neuroscientist. I intend to continue performing research after graduate school in either academic or public sectors. My life-long goal is to increase the efficiency of how human beings learn and remember.”
KUSA-TV's Jeremy Jojola and NBC News's Sevil Omer contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
NBC.... Slow news day?
It just can't be helped can it? NBC is like a rabid pit-bull. Once it latches onto something, especially something that blends well with it's predisposed agenda, it will not let go, regardless of how immaterial and mundane the information is.
Please, NBC... show me exactly WHAT new information this presents that is relevant to this losers behaviour. Were there any "indicators" in these interviews that he wanted to do anything other than study? If there were, NBC surely didn't provide them, or is that part of the game NBC likes to play?
...I think it's great that, at least, Alabama can tell a liberal nutjob from the get-go and cut him from the herd ASAP.
who said he was a liberal?............. get a grip!
What a strange way to say nut job.
What was the 'red flag'? It looked like they gave him pretty good reviews.
this is not a red flag that he is going to shoot up the place. It simply means that Holmes does not know how to interact with folks and if you have to interact with others in this field, it would not be a good idea to put him in the program. the panel probable couldn't read him and that is why he wasn't allowed at that school.
he was wearing body armour and had orange hair when he aplied at u of iowa.
Because "shy" and "difficult to engage" are such uncommon traits among smart people.
My thoughts exactly. Introverts tend to be very smart people. BREAKING NEWS.
I guess we also tend to be mass murders? So AL did not want him, that does not mean they saw a mass murder in him. Nice try at making up a story.
Brian/ThatGuy/Grumpy -
Most people get nervous, shy and difficult to engage (?) during job interviews! I can imagine how stressful it has to be when you are interviewing for what was it - one of three - openings. Oh yeah. But according to MSNBC it just another indicator of a "whack job". What a website.
What "concerns?" How is not being engaging or shy an indicator for being a mass murderer?? This is such a STUPID headline. When I saw it it made me think that those other schools had some kind of secret clues.
It would be interesting to see why Iowa turned him down. But I doubt it would be much different than Alabama's reasons - unless he told Iowa that he planned to move to Colorado and on some date in the far future he was going to go see a Batman movie and kill everyone inside of it.
All of this hindsight stuff is a load of crap. The reason why he killed those people is that he was a crazy person. Nothing could have been done to prevent it. The world is full of crazy people. In the 100 years or so of there being movie theaters, how many times has a person gone inside and committed mass murder?
Yes, folks have been shot inside of movies, but only for being jerks and yacking away during the movies - and rightly so. Then you also have all the violence whenever a gang based black movie comes out (like Boyz in the Hood) and those folks start to chimp out. But that is a whole nother post.
I disagree. He is NOT crazy, at least not in the traditional sense. He is quite sane. He is cold and calculating. He took great pains to plan the entire event. He wanted his 15 minutes of fame like all of these people.
He IS a sociopath, but I wouldn't call him crazy. He is very sane and is hoping to play the system for ALL it's worth.
XDm9
I don't usually agree with you on much but this time, yep. Just take a look at the comic book sociopath he is emulating. The joker isn't crazy, He knows exactly what he's doing and is just very good at using the appearance of psychosis to mask his behavior.
While reading everything relating to this incident, and what he wanted to do with his life, I'm starting to believe that it was sociopath's test on society. He wanted to see how the massacre would be handled and if he would be able to get away with it (declared insane) by pretending to be incoherent during the trial.
This quote definitely has me thinking it was an experiment: "My life-long goal is to increase the efficiency of how human beings learn and remember"
Actually Alabama had no right to release personal information like this. This is not for the public's eyes to see why he didn't get into the program. This is why folks get off of cases when private information gets out in the public. This is just wrong.
This info has most likely been used as much as it possibly can be used by the investigators. The article doesn't say to whom the info was released. It was probably provided to the media by someone inside the investigation.
We had a guy flip out at work, sent a threatening email to over 400 of us. He lived at the edge of a local national park and said every day when he came in that someone was shooting at him out of the woods at night (noone was). He told us he was a trained killer (nope) and someday people would know what he was capable of and they would be sorry.
After the email the company made him get evaluated by a shrink. The verdict was either get help or your fired. He got fired, and his Dad is a VP here. Sooo, this paranoid, pissed off, highly intelligent social outcast with a mental disorder is walking among us getting more crazy, paranoid and pissed off.
He moved to AZ this past winter and we're all waiting for him to be on the news. Just as a precaution, when he was fired our company locked all the buildings down for a month. They knew he was dangerous and neither they or his dip@!$%# Dad took any actions to help him. I'm sure this is happening more than people would like to think.
Terrific. I live in AZ. Please stocp sending us nutjobs!
This kid was drugged, if you don't know who is father was check it out. There is much to this story not being told!
Schizophrenia shows up in people when they are in their late teens to early twenty
Schizophrenia is believed to be caused when certain chemicals in the brain are not in balance. Not all people with schizophrenia have the same symptoms. Some of the most common symptoms for schizophrenia may include:
be glad it did happen to any of you.
I would not call people my friends. Especially people I don't know. And people that I know to be homeless losers trying to give advice. I would not call a person a friend chronically pries in other family business or family matters. And I hardly call a person(s) a friend who play head games.
I think his Participation in the Occupy movement should have been an indicator
Sorry I thought I was still on the drew peterson comment page.
"Shy but a leader?" Aren't those 2 oxymorons? Lead whom if he can't verbalize whatever is in his mind? apparently evil thoughts.
This is a strange and scary person who seemed to slip thru the cracks. ANd I am not sure why the University Therapist did not report his behavior to the Authorities (police).
Because doctor/patient confidentiality only allows therapists to report patients to the police if they have specific reasons to believe a specific crime will be committed in the future. A vague notion that a patient may, at some point, act out in some way to harm some person some where is not reportable, nor do we really wish it to be. If patients believe that speaking honestly to their therapists will get them knocks on the door from the cops, patients will simply stop seeking treatment, and that's more harmful to them and to society.
Further, even if the doctor had reported his behavior, what could the police have done? "This patient gives me the willies" does not give the cops enough to get a warrant to search his house to see if he's stockpiling guns. It doesn't given them enough to get a warrant to search his credit card history to see if he's been buying guns and ammo. They couldn't get a warrant to look at his computer searches or his phone history or anything else about his life that he didn't wish to share. The most they could do is knock on his door for a conversation he could end any time, and talk to his friends/neighbors/coworkers/teachers to see if anyone else got the willies. But, from what we've learned so far, none of his creeped out friends/etc would have known enough to get a warrant, either.
And before you start in on how pointless it is to protect the rights of psychopaths, so screw his rights and search anyway, remember, these aren't just his rights, they are your rights. What bar would you like the police to clear before they can enter your house and search it top to bottom, seize your computer and search your files, and talk to your coworkers about the fact you may be a nut job?
How does any of this constitute "flags" or "concerns"? Go through any university's applicant interview notes and you'll find hundreds, if not thousands, of students described as "shy" or "difficult to engage" or rated "do not admit." And how many of those students have gone on to shoot up movie theaters or commit any other horrific crime?
Honestly, this story just sounds like NBC is trying to beat the drum for more gun control laws based on pre-emptively revoking the right to own guns based on "concerns" from anyone in the community about a person's "stability" or perceived mental health. They seem to be operating under the theory that if they can pretend that someone could have, and should have, seen this coming, then we'll be inclined to grant more power to state preemptively revoke rights in order to protect us from such seemingly predictable outcomes.
But not a single one of those professors wrote on the eval "potentially murderous psychopath." They merely thought he was not the type of student they wanted to work with, along with dozens of other applicants that they rejected, some more forcefully than others. If you asked those professors why they rejected him, and to explain more fully, I doubt you'd hear nothing stronger that "I thought he'd be a pain in the A-- to get him to participate because he was so shy, and that it would disrupt the flow of the class."
He wrote the therapist letters saying he was going to do this but I think she evidently she did not believe he would carry out his madness. James Eagan Holmes was smart enough to purchase all the high end weapons and to set a trap to kill even more people. If you can do all that and dye your hair and walk into a movie theater, then you can stand trial for all the harm he did to innocent people and their families.
And if he was abused by his peers who he felt treated him badly while he was struggling in school (failing) -- be for real some people do these things (just saying). Just like in prison you try to not mess with people who will do terminator type behavior.
Really they let this man fall thru the cracks of the mental health system because of his intelligence. The school was responsible for NOT warning the university and the community that he is a real dangerous terrorist. Yup we have them in the US.
I want to know why he was rejected. Seems like he had outstanding recommendations from multiple people, with insane test scores to boot.
he was rejected as a candidate for the Ph.D. neuroscience program, documents show. That's what they say after he really was accepted and they were experimenting on him, then he went Jason Bourne on them. And they do not want to be at fault. I like my explanation better.
coulda, woulda, shoulda!! WHO CARES! why are we wasting peoples time and money on this A-hole? Put a bullet in his head, throw him in a hole and be done with it. oh ya and make his family pay for that bullet too!!!
Ridiculous! "Behavior raised flags in Alabama?" Then the comments about his interviews are all normal.
This is reporting? Why do they waste our time?
I guess Colorado colleges just aren't as particular who goes to their schools as these other colleges. Tells you a little bit about Colorado. It had to have been more than shyness that kept him out of the other colleges.
What a silly comment. Every applicant gets accepted at some schools and rejected at others, even top candidates at top schools. I'm sure you could find some who were rejected at colorado and admitted in alabama, too. Doesn't mean one of them's a psychopath.
Here we go... same news of trying to point the finger and see who dropped the ball. This nutbag went to the theatre, armed, with the intent to kill and pulled the trigger. He is not a conservative or a liberal or a Democrat or Republican. OMG...what if he was an independent?, I mean he acted independently right? (sarcasm) He is a POS murderer...plain and simple. Nothing more and obviously something less...he is even lower than the lowest. Even amphibian @!$%# has more value than this POS. Who cares about his mentality! It was enough to commit this heinous crime! Here is one of the main stream media outlets (NBC) who 'talk' to the people as if the people are 'dumb' and unintelligent. NBC, provide us the sentencing when he is convicted. Otherwise, go beat a different horse!
their you go again, showing his stupid face with that sweet potato head of his. nbc and msn are doing just want he wants. He want to be famous for what he did. He is a coward with a yellow streak down his back. Put him in the chair pull the switch and end this farce. This is not a man, he is a animal, a cowardly animal at that.
Get that stupid picture of him off of the internet. Sweet Potato Head need to go to he!!
Denver airport prophecy had to be surpassed
What is the "denver airport prophesy" Did someone have a dream that the new Denver airport would function like any other airport? Did they have a dream someone had finally installed more than 200 chairs in the entire airport? Went to Aspen to ski.That airport is a disaster!
Whether he realizes or not ,he will now be watched and looked after the rest of his life.I'm sure ,not in the stting he had wished! One has to sometimes feel sorry for a criminal,this is one of those rare moments for me!! Deeply disturbed individual!
But Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when you are Imperfect In Every Way! Red Flag, why was this guy still wandering around. Probably used the name Sanchez, Martinez, or Lupe, Jorge, or something along those lines.
They ever follow up the leads on the video & interviews that some people did at one of the Occupy protests that Holmes showed up in? Funny how that seemed to get squelched & pushed quietly by the wayside with elections looming.
I think the fact that he was a Democrat should have been the first major clue as to his mental illness.
When is the government going to do something about all these deranged Democrats shooting and bombing innocent American citizens like this.