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Subscribe to RSSWitnesses described the gruesome scene left behind, a tear gas-filled killing zone that left 12 dead. NBC's Mike Taibbi reports.
Updated 7:45 p.m. ET: The scene inside Theater 9 was pure chaos and horror: bloodied victims crawling for the exits past motionless bodies, the smell of tear gas stinging the disbelieving eyes of police officers, cellphones ringing all around.
Just a few feet away, though, in the multiplex parking lot, James Holmes was the picture of calm, “just standing there” in a helmet, gas mask and body armor, staring off into the distance.
“He seemed very detached from it all,” Officer Jason Oviatt of the Aurora, Colo., Police Department testified Monday as a preliminary hearing got under way with graphic testimony about the July 20 carnage at a midnight screening of a Batman movie.
“Very, very relaxed.”
Oviatt was the first witness at a hearing that saw a veteran officer break down on the stand as he described finding the body of a 6-year-old girl – one of 12 people killed and 58 wounded in the ambush.
Victims’ relatives sat quietly in the courtroom as officers recalled how one wounded woman stopped breathing every time she was moved, another victim gasped for breath on the way to the hospital, a third kept asking if his wife would live.
One cop spoke of a sound that will probably haunt him forever: the slosh of blood in the back seat of the car he used to take six people from the Century 16 cinema to the hospital.
Through all the gut-wrenching testimony – which included the revelation that Holmes, 25, bought his ticket to the movie 12 days before the screening – the bearded massacre suspect did not react.
His demeanor was apparently not that different from the one Oviatt encountered in the parking lot last summer.
Oviatt was on the graveyard shift in the Denver suburb when the call about the shooting came in. He followed a trail of blood to the back of the building and found Holmes standing by a car in SWAT-type gear.
He thought he was a police officer, but as he got closer, realized he was wrong.
'Robot': Victims' families eye theater massacre suspect
At gunpoint, he ordered the suspect to put up his hands and get on the ground, where he handcuffed him. Holmes – dripping with sweat, his pupils wildly dilated, reeking of body odor – did not display “normal emotional responses” and did not resist, he said.
The officers asked him if he was alone and Holmes responded with a strange smile, “like a smirk,” Officer Justin Grizzle testified.
There was a rifle by the car, and when Oviatt searched Holmes, he found two ammunition magazines in his pocket and two knives. Holmes volunteered that his home had been booby-trapped with “improvised explosive devices,” Oviatt said.
Officer Aaron Blue helped Oviatt search Holmes, but after the suspect was secure, his attention was drawn to the theater, where another cop was pulling out a woman who had been shot in the head and the leg.
Court hearing focuses on Holmes' notebook
“Every time she moved, she stopped breathing,” Blue said.
The woman was Jessica Ghawi, 24, a blogger who had been tweeting about the movie, “The Dark Knight Rises,” not long before Holmes allegedly tossed tear-gas canisters into the theater and opened fire.
Blue and the other officer took her to University Hospital, where she died.
Grizzle went into the theater, where he heard people screaming and stepped over an assault rifle left on the blood-slicked floor. Alarms were going off and “The Dark Knight Rises” was still playing on the screen. All around him, he saw still bodies and “some gunshot victims that were just crawling to get out."
He made four trips to the hospital with victims.
“I didn’t want anyone else to die,” he said.
On his first drive, Ashley Moser, 25, shot in the head and abdomen, was in the back seat. Her boyfriend kept asking, “That’s my wife. Is my wife going to live?” and tried to jump out of the car to find Ashley’s 6-year-daughter. The pregnant mom survived but later miscarried and was paralyzed. Her daughter, Veronica, died.
On another trip, standup comic Caleb Medley was in the back seat. He’d been shot in the face and was making terrible noises. Each time he stopped breathing, the officer, using an expletive, ordered him not to die. Medley survived.
By the time Grizzle was done transporting the wounded, he noticed his patrol car was spattered with blood.
“I could hear blood sloshing in the back,” he said.
KUSA's Anastasiya Bolton and Blair Shiff contributed to this report.
Ted S. Warren / AP
Twelve people were killed and 58 were injured when a gunman opened fire in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater.
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Leave a Comment:
Why is this case still in court? You've got witnesses, plenty of evidence of his planning the massacre, caught him with the guns on him and in full gear and dead victims.
Why are we still wasting money on this guy?
Exactly... why so drawn out?
The lawyers need to make that Mercedes payment.
It would be nice if it were over.
However, he has a right to a speedy and fair trial and due process because of the 6th and 14th Amendments.
"Taking rights seriously, including rights we might not favor personally, is good medicine for the body politic." Clark Neily
mc-fine,The taxpayers are not wasting money on Mr.Holmes.He is being given his due process of our laws.You would expect the same be done for yourself if accused of a crime.
I agree he has a right to a fair trial, but the speedy part he isn't getting.
The clear and present danger in this country is not Big Brother or the threat of a foreign invation, it is the free access to guns for any nut to use.
it is the free access to guns for any nut to use.
The are not as free as you think. Nor is access to them easy. However, I do think before a weapon is purchased not only should the individual's criminal background be checked but so should their medical issues. This does not mean that everyone on Zoloft should be denied the right to a gun but a red flag should require further checks.
The case of the Tuscon shooter is a clear example. That is why that idiotic hypocrite Sheriff was so quick to place blame on others. He dropped the ball on Loughner and the tragedy that resulted he is part responsible for.
Apparently it's more rocket science than you can comprehend! Nuts will continue to use weapons like guns and so on to carry out their violent acts. Your stupid laws will do NOTHING to curtail this. Perhaps we should stop breeding the nuts and criminals in the first place!
Bull
"it is the free access to guns for any nut to use"..... and your remedy is what?
Sensible gun control.
Can we PLEASE get this constitution and 2A right?
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
For those who slept through their basic English class lesson on sentence construction....When the Amendment is properly read, it is obvious that it is the Militia that is dependent on the people’s right, rather than the people’s right being dependent on the Militia. Furthermore, from the words of the Amendment itself, it is also obvious that the right of the people to bear arms preceded any militia involvement and even the Constitution itself. The people with arms were to be the insurance that regulated the militia, to keep the militia from becoming un-regulated or corrupt against the people of the state!
Let's preserve our Second Amendment right to keep and arm bears!
Wow ! Glad you refreshed our memory on Militia.
I just saw part of "The Patriot" and they used the same exact word over 200 years ago.
It was used by a British loyalist.
I have a ton of friends that own a gun.
Not one of them ever talks about Militia or felt the need to rush out and purchase a gun.
They are responsible gun owners who make sure their guns are safe.
Let us go over yesterday's headlines.
Woman in Atlanta with 2 children shoots man 5 times.
Since the story is rather vague . Did she live in the suberbs or in the projects ?
Was she Black or White ? Was she on welfare or was she a working mother?
A single mother should have something to protect herself.
Here is 2 more headlines.
"Young man high on PCP is shot by cops when he yielded a shotgun"
Mother says the cops acted irrationally ?
If I am a cop and someone has a gun and is high I will shoot if I feel threatened.
SOP is to try to talk the gunman into dropping the weapon numerous times.
They didnt even shoot to kill.
Colorado man high on Crystal meth kills 3.
Do you get the picture ? or is this news too recent to understand ?
Since all you seem to understand is news from over 200 years ago.
When you start to call people uneducated you might want to use new material ?
I carry and always will, too bad others don't these crimes could be minimised. one piece of lead would have stopped this monster
Certainly this rotten piece of garbage deserves to be hung out to dry, but it would be even better if they lock his sorry ass up in the prison's general population and let his fellow inmates do a job on him,
(a la Geoffrey Dahmer!)
maverickdallas101,Your hatred and language are not acceptable to me nor do they have anyplace on a forum that is for debating.
Evil is what evil does. I despise evil, I do NOT tolerate it!
Guns are not evil; it's the scum of the earth that misuses them.
What causes evil to run rampant more than anything else?
Good people who do nothing or say nothing!
PLEASE -- I am asking CNN, and all news outlets, in the name of decency, do not post the photo of the accused mass murderer in this case. He doesn't deserve the fame, and it dishonors the victims. And try to avoid mentioning his name. I also think that the great publicity given to mass murderers these days is creating a copy cat factor. These twisted individuals understand that they can go out in a blaze of fame. As a society, we should not let that happen. This was an excellent suggestion from commentator David Brooks, in December.
As long as you liberals allow mentally disturbed guys like this to walk the streets and then refuse to execute them when they commit crimes, then I should be allowed to own any kind of firearm necessary to protect myself and family.
Dan,
It's not the liberals that cut mental health funding again and again, it's your party that wants to "stop the spending". Our failed mental health system that allows people like this delusional madman to roam the streets is due to your party not mine!
Consider this: the average number of victims per incident when the shooter is stopped by an armed civilian: three. The average number of victims when the shooter is stopped by a policeman: fourteen. Why? Because when every second is a matter of life and death, the police are still minutes away. Think about those numbers. Eleven people die needlessly if the shooting takes place in a “victim disarmament zone,” where legal firearms are prohibited. This is why deranged shooters head for schools, malls, and theaters, where signs forthrightly proclaim that guns are forbidden. A “no firearms” sign draws such a person the way that a starving wolf is attracted to a pen full of helpless lambs.
But when the killer is stopped by an armed civilian, the mainstream media rarely or never mention that fact, because it goes against their propaganda template: the inherent evil of guns in civilian hands. So those stories are spiked and the typical American never hears of them. Did you know that shortly before the tragedy in Connecticut, an armed civilian stopped a maniac in a packed shopping mall after he had killed only two victims, instead of twenty-seven?
So, directly behind the insane faces of contemporary villains like Loughner, Holmes and Lanza, we see the smirking faces of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, tyrants who did not murder individual victims by the fives and tens, but entire populations by the tens of millions. And in each case, these national genocides were preceded by gun confiscation that was made possible by national firearms registration laws sold to a gullible population in the name of “public safety.”
Are you refering to the guy in Oreagon? I thought he shot himself.
those who would give up liberty for safety deserve neither. Want to stop violent crimes?? Execute anyone convicted of violent crime tomorrow.
O bull@!$%#! Case closed! This guy killed people! Stop wasting our money. Take his ass in and put him to death right now!!!!
A classic example of how our judicial system has become big business for lawyers. AT some point, people were held accountable for their decisions. Now we have a culture that makes excuses for this type of behavior. And some people think gun control is the answer. What a joke.
Artable,
Great Post :) Thank You
The only deterrent would be if we convicted this @$$hole and then hung him at noon in a public square. Then let's see how many crazy f***ks want to shoot up people.
guillotine would be more satisfying
Looks like the lawyers are going to make a Broadway Production out of this case. My only question: When and where is the public execution by hanging going to take place?
Thanks a lot, "Investigative Journalists".... We know all too well about the guns used at the mall shooting, the Aurora shooting, Sandy Hook, etc, etc, etc....
No reporting though on the mind altering drugs that any of the murderers were on.
Shame on you. And, f'k you and your agenda.
wnd dot com/2013/01/the-giant-gaping-hole-in-sandy-hook-reporting/
“Through the whole thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is going to happen, but you can’t do anything to stop it.”
“This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun.”
funny how being crazy makes you special. He is a killer, done. Execute him tomorrow. It is cruel and unusual (not to mention expensive) to sentnece someone to death, and then wait 20 years to do it. Then again, he'll probably get life without parole, then get paroled out in 20 years for "good behavior".
@T
No sh1t.
You missed the point.
what was the point other than how ridiculous this entire affair has become? We are led to believe that guns are responsible for violence, yet killers are simply "off their meds", or conversely " on medication". This "crisis" will end with a made for TV movie. I got it.
You are as looney as this guy
About the only thing his attorneys could possibly say in his defense is that he paid for a ticket, so he gained access to the theatre legally. Pretty thin stuff, I'd say.
case dismissed if you're the defense
yeah well i think its time to impeach leaders who dont care enough to pass a law to execute thugs in a year or less law , our great country is turning into a cesspool of crime everywhere , these liberals who focus on gay rights and weed need to step aside , its obvious they cant budget anything right , when it costs 50,000 a year to prision a thug , then they get out and thug again , they have already killed once or more , then we the so called people are the ones at risk again when they are released , for them to start crime all over , so i blame criminals in the first place , but i also blame leaders of the country who can care less and focus on more power , we the people are supposed to have the power on these matters not the other way around - and as far as mental health goes , seperate and give to the non criminals who dont do crime , the other ones are just criminals anyway - i seriously think impeachment is due on all levels state by state - and washington d.c. should have the decency to focus on such matters in the first place ... not last like i am clearly seeing - is it getting to the point where these leaders just dont care ? well if they did they would have done something about it 50 years ago
This psychotic delusional killer will not be executed he will spend the rest of his life in one of Colorado's State Mental Health Hospitals. He is the poster person for our failed mental health system, as are most of these serial killers.
Why waste money keeping a human monster just kill him
William,Thank you.At last a person that is educated and understands what has happened to the mental health care system in this country.
Here's a gun story that NBC News wishes didn't exist:
A Georgia mother shot an ex-convict six times to protect her and her children after he apparently forced his way into the family’s home.
The mom heard knocks on her front door Friday and assumed it was just a solicitor, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
She told her 9-year-old twins not to answer the door and, when the visitor began repeatedly ringing the doorbell, she called her husband at his job and he told her to gather the children and hide.
According to the Journal-Constitution, the father then dialed 911 and his wife, who works from a home office, hid with the children in a crawlspace.
By that time, according to the paper, the intruder had used a crowbar to forcibly enter the home, and made his way to the home office.
“He opens the closet door and finds himself staring down the barrel of a .38 revolver,” Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The woman fired six bullets, five of which hit Paul Ali Slater in the face and neck area, Chapman said. But Slater, who has arrests dating to 2008 and was released from jail in August, was still conscious.
“The guy’s face down, crying,” the sheriff said. The woman told him to stay down or she’d shoot again.
While down, the woman and her children ran to a neighbor’s house, and the injured intruder made it out of the home and into his car, the paper reported.
Authorities found Slater a short time later bleeding profusely in a neighbor’s driveway.
“I’m dying. Help me,” he told them, according to Chapman.
Slater was transported to Gwinnett Medical Center and is expected to survive, the sheriff said.
Yep. They selectively missed that one.
Emotion. Human emotion. Far too many people live by emotions rather than intelligent thinking.
This is a sad story sure, we've had a few in recent years and every time this happens an emotional response is played and manipulated by some government intervention. Nothing seems to work because no one seems to be thinking outside of the emotional realm. These incidents have been carried out by some emotional unstable being who for the most part obtain his weapon illegally. Behavior is the key here. Understanding and identifying behavior which is counter to a somewhat normal society consensus.
Identify those who are having difficulty in society and manage or limit their ability to obtain items which could harm themselves and others. Apparently our medical community has some fiduciary responsibility to our government to report these individuals. I guess it's a start. Approaching these folks and enlightening them with this new found knowledge is another matter all together. Rights. Our Civil Rights come into play. Complicated at best.
Entertainment. We love watching TV going to movies or reading books. I tend to scrutinize the visual attributes of TV and movies. The more extreme the better. Shoot them up, Bang, Bang. We love watching the visual effects of someone get shot or blown to pieces. Take the hundreds of hours spent by some disturbed individual who lives in some fantasy world and see what happens. Scary. When my kids were small and I had no control over where they were playing. I gathered up kids in my neighborhood and took them to a two day hunter safety course to help them understand the dynamics and ownership of firearms. They developed a healthy respect and their parents thanked me for considering the importance. We really don’t have control of what’s going on at other families homes.
We are continuously inundated by Public announcements. Example: Did you use this has a loved one done that, let the law offices of BLA and BLA help you with your case. BS but effective. If the FDA was doing it’s job we would not see all this.
How about a public announcement about Gun Ownership? How about Gun safety courses for you and your families. How about a twenty second bite about how to lock and store your guns. How about using some real informative, educational and common sense approach to a problem? My heuristic opinion is that if we publicized Gun Safety courses that a majority if not all legal gun owners would participate in these classes. It would also stimulate the economy with residual dollars going to the tax coffers. No we can't do that. Americans are looked upon as stupid and complacent for the most part and they need real leadership and government to keep them in line. Unemployment line, SSI line, Hospital lines ect.. Today Biden is tasked with this matter. California Dems. have gotten off their easy chairs to tell Teachers to stop investing their retirement in Gun manufacturers. City of LA also banned the sale of reloading supplies. Are they saying the Gang Bangers are sitting around reloading? Give me a break. Again the Gov. using it’s manipulative might to rally change. Looking back in time it all seemed to become more of a faltering society when the Government endorsed women's rights and working. They could suck in more revenue. The trade off was no moms at home to maintain a stable home environment. Remember the “Latch key kids”. Their older now and many are out of control. Thanks to, yep, American politics. Seems like all this Constitutional dabbling is a precursor for trouble much bigger than school shootings. Take God out of the equation, moms out of the homes. It’s gone to far.
God bless us all. We’re down to divine intervention. So if you want real answers and solutions I suggest finding and dusting of those old Bibles. If for nothing else you might find some thought provoking stories which could help you cope with today's top news stories.
People are now buying armored backpacks for their children and again record sales of guns and ammo with folks legally applying with the DOJ. Legal citizens. Think about that? Law abiding citizens for the most part registering and buying guns. Another emotional response but still a response. The same people who are voting in local and national elections. The politicians, All should really take a look at what their considering here. Imagine what will take place if they pass some intrusive bill which allows authority to start searching homes and residencies? It will get ugly then FEMA will have to pull out it’s 98 Apache helicopter gun ships. Yep, FEMA
Punishing all for the ill behavior of a few is a slap in the face to the integrity and responsible of the patriotic civilian. You will not gain support with this counter Constitutional Act. What this conveys is that no one can be trusted. Think about what you are doing. Adding cops to our educational system is a thought but will add additional expense to the equation. Giving teachers guns for class is another consideration. Then think about contract negotiations and bargaining agreements. Next there will be added expense for hazardous work environments. We have an abundance of recently and well trained military personnel who are looking for work. An alternative to adding police services to schools look at tapping into this existing resource for help. Train, train and retrain those who want to be part of the solution. Create the environment that supports our Constituently history and maintains sensible approach to a changing society. Think out of the box for real change.
Great Post,
Laos Deo
@ Dee Ten "...is expected to survive" that is unfortunate
This turd should simply be publicly hung. He can show us his insane wide eyed smiles there.
SEALE, Ala. — An eastern Alabama high school student faces an attempted assault charge after authorities say he planned to use homemade explosives in a terrorist attack on fellow students at his school. Authorities say 17-year-old Derek Shrout, a student at Russell County High School in Seale, will appear at a Monday afternoon court hearing in Russell County.
Good thing there wasn’t an AR 15 involved!
Kill him put his head on a pike and let everyone know why
88 million gunowners in America, 99.9% never pull on another person. Why punish everyone for the mistakes of a few. Guess what over 15,000 are killed by drivers drinking or on drugs (every year) We do not live in a safe world. New laws will not fix this. Everyone of them borke the law in obtaining these guns. Lets make it easy to get help for perople with mental problems. Lets make it manditory to get these people help.
William,Thank you once again for your educated comments. I'm thinking that most of these posters are still on winter break from school.
Manditory help for "These people"? Who are they?
I just saw a report of mass shootings in the US. Their were 8 incidents and 151 dead. They needed to go back to 1984 to find 8!
I am sure something like this will happen again but dumping money into mental health is a black hole.
These are freak occurances. We dont need to change anything in this country because of these shootings.
Good luck finding the needles in the haystack. Just because their in need of mental health doesnt mean they are dangerous.
He can try to look as crazy as he wants....that stupid red hair, that really stupid wide-eyed expression. I'm not buying it. He knows exactly what he did and it's a game to the end with this piece of crap. Unfortunately WE have to PAY to keep him in jail. We all answer to God in the end.