4 killed, including suspect, in Colorado shooting

WASHINGTON DC - A gun-toting assailant opened fire Saturday in Colorado, shooting three people to death before officers returned fire and killed the shooter, authorities said.

Around 8:45 a.m. (1445 GMT), the Colorado Springs Police Department had a report of shots fired in downtown Colorado Springs, said El Paso County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Jackie Kirby.

"When the suspect fired multiple shots at the officers, CSPD officers returned fire," she said.

"We can confirm there are three victims who are deceased. And in addition to these three victims, the suspect is also deceased."

"We do not believe there is any further threat to the community," Kirby added, declining to state the shooter's gender.

None of the police officers was injured, the spokeswoman said. The incident is under investigation.

source: interaksyon.com

James Holmes Survivor 'Batman' Shooter Deserves SLOW, PAINFUL DEATH

"Batman" shooter James Holmes doesn't just deserve the death penalty ... he deserves the worst, most painful death possible -- so says one of the survivors of the massacre.

22-year-old Carli Richards -- whom Holmes shot in the back with a shotgun -- tells TMZ, "I think death by firing squad would be totally justified ... Just injecting him is painless."

She says, "I had enough needles in me that night to know that a needle isn't that bad. I want him to see what it feels like ... I wish someone would shoot him and let him bleed out."

She adds, "He shot me with stuff they use to shoot birds and deer. I want him to feel what it's like to feel that helpless."

Thankfully, Carli and her boyfriend made it to safety before Holmes could kill them -- but Carli says she's still in a lot of pain, and can't go back to work yet with her current injuries.



Carli is the second person affected by the massacre to call for Holmes' death. TMZ broke the story yesterday, the husband of a woman killed in the shooting also demanded the death penalty.

It's worth nothing because prosecutors have said they will only consider pursuing the death penalty with support from the victims' families.

Holmes was charged Monday with 142 crimes stemming from the Colorado shooting -- including 24 1st degree murder counts, and 116 counts of attempted murder.

If he's found guilty of 1st degree murder, he faces the death penalty by lethal injection.

source: tmz.com

Christian Bale Visiting 'Batman' Shooting Victims in Colorado

One of the shooting victims, Carey Rottman, was so excited to meet Bale ... he posted a photo of the hospital visit to his Facebook page moments ago (above).

Rottman is recovering from a gunshot wound to the leg he suffered in the attack.







"Dark Knight Rises" star Christian Bale is currently in Denver, CO ... visiting the victims and families of last week's movie theater shooting.


According to KDVR, Bale has been spotted at Aurora Medical Center ... where he reportedly arrived by ambulance around 2PM ... most likely to enter the building under the radar.

A rep for Warner Bros. released a statement saying, "Mr. Bale is there as himself, not representing Warner Brothers."

It's unclear when Bale arrived in Denver.

Bale's film was playing in the Century 16 theater in Aurora, CO when James Holmes opened fire on the crowd ... killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.

Bale has not made a public appearance since the incident.

source: tmz.com

How did our society produce a James Holmes?

Not difficult really.

It is a known fact throughout the shocked world that America has long been a growing war freak from the time they’ve been fighting the native American Indians and seizing their ancestral lands.

Another factor is the Second Amendment in the United States Constitution. It is supposed to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.

This amendment may have been valid in the early days of frontier life when lawlessness reigned and the country was with wild animals. But in today’s civilized society, the second amendment is not as relevant, and yet war freaks condoned by the National Rifle Association still persist. The NRA always wins every attempt to amend or remove this provision.

To make matters worse, America imports violent video games that endorse all kinds of mayhem and brutality. All this is supposed to provide “entertainment” to youngsters.

Along this line, Hollywood produces movies that glamorize guns and gangsters. In some of these movies, the police and agents of the law are portrayed as the bad guys while the gangsters are the heroes! These producers continue to romanticize violence as the be-all of machismo and heroism and how American soldiers are well trained to kill efficiently.

In the face of all this climate of violence we then find even in the higher echelons of society a seemingly immature model of a war freak: the president of the most powerful country in the world. He knows only to wage war because he does not know how to foster peace. He invades other countries that he wrongly accuses as terrorists with faulty evidences or even planted ones. To make his image look tough in the world he verbally abuses leaders and calls their countries members of the “axis of evil” out to destroy the U.S. He was successful in angering Islamic countries and we saw what happened on 9/11.

So, am I now surprised to read about the Aurora, Colorado shooting? Of course not. And if nothing is done by way of legislation and in formal education, this will surely happen again.

The NaFFAA affiliate in Southern Colorado announced a Filipino teenager is among the victims of the shooting rampage. He was identified as Ryan Lumba, 17, a graduate of Eaglecrest High School. Ryan is the son of Sam and Remy Lumba. He reportedly received shrapnel wounds in the stomach, and is said to be in stable condition. The Filipino American community requests prayers for Ryan and his family.

source: thefilam.net

Colorado massacre suspect silent in first court hearing

CENTENNIAL, Colorado - The man accused of killing a dozen people in a Colorado movie theater during a showing of the new "Batman" film made his first appearance in court on Monday, sitting silently in a red jailhouse jump suit and with his hair dyed bright red.

James Eagan Holmes, 24, who was detained immediately after the massacre early on Friday morning, appeared groggy and emotionless during the brief hearing, looking straight ahead and occasionally closing his eyes. He was shackled at the wrists and ankles.

The judge said murder charges would be filed on Monday July 30.

Police say Holmes was dressed in body armor and toting three guns when he opened fire at a packed midnight screening of the new Batman movie at a theater complex in the Denver suburb of Aurora. Fifty-eight other people were hurt, and many of them have serious wounds.

Police say they are still searching for a motive for the crime.

Holmes was represented by a public defender during the brief hearing before Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester.

Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers has the task of deciding whether to seek the death penalty for Holmes. She has prosecuted two of the three inmates who are now on Colorado's death row.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama traveled to the suburb of 325,000 to offer comfort to families of the victims. He told them their loved ones would be remembered long after the justice system was done with the killer.

The dead included war veterans, an aspiring sportscaster who had barely escaped a shooting in a Toronto mall earlier this summer, and a 6-year-old girl.

The crime meets all the elements of Colorado capital case law, including premeditation, multiple victims, and the killing of a child, said former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman.

"If James Holmes isn't executed, Colorado may as well throw away its death penalty law," he said.

Many in Aurora have vowed to deny Holmes the publicity they believe he craves by not uttering his name.

"I refuse to say his name. In my house we're just going to call him Suspect A," Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper told a memorial on the steps of the suburb's municipal center on Sunday night. He captured a spirit of defiance voiced by citizens as well as religious and political leaders.

Holmes and his motives remained largely a mystery, with past associates saying he displayed no hints of a mental illness or violent tendencies.

He was armed with a Smith & Wesson M&P .223 semi-automatic rifle, similar to an AR-15 assault rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and a Glock .40-caliber handgun. Police found an additional Glock .40-caliber handgun in his car. All the weapons had been bought legally.

He is in solitary confinement to protect him from other prisoners. Holmes had recently dropped out of a doctoral degree program in neuroscience at the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical School, a few blocks from his apartment.— Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Dark Knight Rises Tragedy: Will the Aurora Massacre Forever Mar the Batman Legacy?

If you're asking whether Christopher Nolan's name will forever be associated with that of shooting suspect James Holmes, that's a stretch, at least, at this early hour.

However, cultural historians tell me, don't be surprised if the phrase "Dark Knight"—or even the word "Batman"—leads to a short-term, or even a long-term, association with the tragic shooting in Aurora, Colo.

Who Is James Holmes?

First of all, know this: This massacre, while the largest such shooting in American history, is not the first set of violent deaths to be associated with a motion picture.

The 1994 Woody Harrelson film Natural Born Killers—about a murderous couple that escapes from jail—has been blamed for spurring four major copycat sprees and a long list of other vicious crimes.

And other films, such as the gang-themed Colors, spurred scattered reports of violence at the time they were released.

Shooting Fallout: Gangster Squad Yanked, Costumes Banned

Today, few people associate Natural Born Killers or Colors with real-life crime; Woody Harrelson has done scads of projects since the mid-1990s, of course, and is more likely these days to be associated with his role in The Hunger Games than anything else.

But, experts tell me, the nexus between the Aurora tragedy and Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is likely to produce a more lasting legacy.

"It will affect the franchise long-term," Fordham University media professor Dr. Paul Levinson tells me. "I don't know if it means that people won't want to see Batman movies, or if people will be more interested. But anytime there is a spilling over or a blending of what happens in the media world with what happens in real life, people are always extremely interested somehow."

Are Violent Movies to Blame?

Unlike, say, Harrelson, who has had a long career, the Dark Knight series is made up of only three projects, two of which now have associations with tragedy, if you include the death of supporting actor Heath Ledger following filming of the second installment.

Because of the limited number of Dark Knight installments, and the high number of deaths now associated with it, it's less likely that the trilogy will be able to shake itself free of the Aurora massacre, Levinson explains.

"You can almost say," Levinson says, "that the franchise is cursed."

source: eonline.com

All 12 Batman shooting victims named

AURORA, Colorado - The names of the 12 people gunned down at a Colorado screening of the new Batman movie were released Saturday, with a six-year-old girl, a teenager, and two US servicemen among the victims.

James Holmes, a 24-year-old postgraduate student born in San Diego, is accused of killing the moviegoers and wounding 58 others at the late night shooting in Aurora city near Denver while "The Dark Knight Rises" was being shown.

Arapahoe County Coroner's office said all 12 victims died of gunshot wounds and named the youngest as Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6.

"She was beautiful and innocent," the girl's great aunt Annie Dalton told The Denver Post, recalling how the blonde child "loved to dress up and read, and was doing well at school."

Veronica's mother, who is 25, was shot in the neck and abdomen and is in critical condition at Aurora Medical Center. She is drifting in and out of consciousness and is unaware that her daughter is dead, said the newspaper.

The oldest victim was named by the coroner as Gordon Cowden, 51.

The others killed included John Larimer, 27, who joined the US Navy in June 20122, and Jesse Childress, 29, who CNN said was also on active duty as a US Air Force staff sergeant.

Aspiring sportscaster Jessica Ghawi, 24, also died in the rampage at the midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," the final part of movie director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.

Ghawi's brother, Jordan, spoke to CNN.

"The more air time these victims have, the less time that man has his two seconds on television," he said, calling Holmes "a coward."

The other victims were Alex Sullivan, a bartender who was celebrating his 27th birthday, Micayla Medek, 23, Jonathan Blunk, 26, Rebecca Wingo, 32, and Alexander Teves, 24.

The 12th person killed was listed by the coroner's office as Matt McQuinn, 27. He has been presumptively identified but is awaiting definitive identification.

Victim support counselor Carol O'Shea said a painstaking process had been followed to ensure that families were notified first and in person.

"We are reaching out frantically and as quick as we can to try to get those resources to people and notifying people as quickly as we can," she told reporters.

Many of those wounded in the shooting will suffer long-term consequences, according to Bob Snyder, a doctor at the city's medical center.

The movie theater attack has revived a debate over gun control in the United States, and drew condemnation by President Barack Obama and his election rival, Republican Mitt Romney.

In Aurora, people gathered late Friday for two vigils as it emerged that Holmes bought more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet, and four guns, in the two months before the massacre.

source: interaksyon.com