At Least 12 Dead After A Shooting At A Showing Of The Dark Knight Rises (UPDATES)
Well, here’s some scary, terrible, horrific, fucked up shit for a Friday morning. During a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises at the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, a 24-year-old crazy kicked open the emergency exit door and opened fire on everyone inside. Yeah, I’ll pause as you trade your cup of morning liquid caffeine for a bottle of something brain-numbing.
Witnesses tell The Denver Post that the gunman was wearing camo all-black, a riot helmet on his head, a gas mask on his face and a bullet-proof vest. When he busted into the theater, he threw some kind of canister, which started hissing and spitting out some kind of gas. That’s when he started shooting. I don’t know if he timed it or it was just a tragic coincidence, but he started shooting during a shootout scene early in the movie. One witness said that many people thought the gun shots were coming from the movie and one thought that the smoke was some kind of special effect. When they realized what was going on, they ran for the doors.
So far, 12 people are confirmed dead (there are reports that 14 are dead) and 50 71 are wounded. A witness told Matt Lauer on Today this morning that she believes several children were shot.
The shooter, who has been ID’ed as 24-year-old James Holmes, didn’t kill himself, which surprised me. He also didn’t put up a fight when cops arrested him and grabbed his shot gun, a hand gun and an AK rifle. Police found a third gun inside of the theater. His apartment building in North Aurora was evacuated after he told police that there were explosives in his apartment. Police believe the shooter acted alone.
Here’s cell phone video taken outside of the theater right after the shooting:
UPDATE: ABC News is real quick, because they have already contacted the maniac’s mother in San Diego. She hasn’t been contacted by police yet, didn’t know of the shooting before ABC News told her and she also wasn’t at all surprised. She only said, “You have the right person. I need to fly out to Colorado.”
UPDATE II: The Paris premiere has been canceled. Also, Reddit has a detailed timeline of the events. It basically translates into: the world is fucked.
UPDATE III: Aaaaand here’s a picture of the shooter.