Aurora CO Theater Massacre

[Asta]

I've viewed the many photos of James Holmes as allowed on the media. What strikes me is how symmetrical his facial features are. In fact. as a former portrait painter many years ago, I am rather amazed at his sharp features. Not the brutish, beady eyed, stereotypical (fill i the blank here) images we've been shown as the typical mass/serial/psycho killer in cultural lore.

Seeing the video of him at age 18 giving a presentation versus his demeanor in court today, it was like seeing two totally different people,

Is this what mental illness looks like? Didn't anyone in his family, his social circle see the changes? Where were the people who cared about him, or did anyone really care about him? Did he have a girl friend? Did he have friends at all????

I feel so much sadness for everyone involved in this horrendous event. Will there ever be any answers?

[82_28]

Thing that occurred to me today is how did he do the following in a parking lot with absolutely nobody noticing:

James Holmes, the alleged perpetrator of Friday’s movie-theater massacre in Aurora, Col., was well-armed. He had an assault rifle with a 100-round magazine. He had a 12-gauge shotgun and two semiautomatic pistols. He had gas canisters to confuse the moviegoers, and an apartment full of explosives to kill police.

But that wasn’t the scariest thing about him. Mass murderers are generally well-armed. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the kids who gunned down 12 high-school students and a teacher in Columbine, Col., in 1999, had two shotguns, a semiautomatic pistol, a carbine rifle, and a bag full of bombs. Seung-Hui Cho, the guy who murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007, had two semiautomatic handguns, 19 magazines, and nearly 400 rounds. Nidal Hasan, the 2009 Fort Hood shooter, used a semiautomatic pistol with a high-capacity magazine to kill 13 victims and wound 43 more. Jared Loughner, the loser who snuffed six people and shot 19 others last year in Tucson, Ariz., didn’t stop firing till the 33-round clip in his Glock ran out.

What distinguished Holmes wasn’t his offense. It was his defense. At Columbine, Harris and Klebold did their damage in T-shirts and cargo pants. Cho and Loughner wore sweatshirts. Hasan was gunned down in his Army uniform.

Holmes’ outfit blew these jokers away. He wore a ballistic helmet, a ballistic vest, ballistic leggings, a throat protector, a groin protector, and tactical gloves. He was so well equipped that if anyone in that theater had tried what the National Rifle Association recommends—drawing a firearm to stop the carnage—that person would have been dead meat. Holmes didn’t just kill a dozen people. He killed the NRA’s answer to gun violence.

Then arming himself with all that weight. Out of a compact Hyundai completely alone to do it? Like, how do you get that far? How do you not know someone is observing you doing it?

I know that I lit off some M-80s and other fireworks a couple of weeks ago in the middle of the night and we were all looking over our shoulders and stuff. But we weren't strapping on pounds and pounds (hundreds of pounds?) of gear and firearms in public. But where was his defense as he was putting on the gear and getting ready to go in? It seems like somebody or somebodies would have had to been looking out for him while he was getting dressed. Why didn't he have a van for instance? I dunno. . .

[Wombaticus Rex]

Most people pay no attention to anything at all, and you know that already.

[82_28]

What was that again? I was busy.

[elfismiles]

Holmes's mother suggests ABC News mischaracterized her statement (VIDEO)
146Comments (94) By DYLAN BYERS | 7/23/12 4:29 PM EDT

Arlene Holmes, the mother of Colorado theater shooting suspect James Holmes, has suggested that ABC News mischaracterized her when it reported that her initial statement to the reporter, "you have the right person," was a reference to her son.

"This statement is to clarify a statement made by ABC media. I was awakened by a call from a reporter by ABC on July 20 about 5:45 in the morning. I did not know anything about a shooting in Aurora at that time," Holmes said in a statement this afternoon, read to the national press by attorney Lisa Damiani. "He asked if I was Arlene Holmes and if my son was James Holmes who lives in Aurora, Colorado. I answered yes, you have the right person. I was referring to myself."

(See also: Full coverage Colorado theater shooting)

"I asked him to tell me why he was calling and he told me about a shooting in Aurora," she continues. "He asked for a comment. I told him I could not comment because I did not know if the person he was talking about was my son, and I would need to find out."

In the first paragraph of its initial report on Friday, ABC News reported that it had identified the correct James Holmes because his mother "told ABC News her son was likely the alleged culprit, saying, 'You have the right person.'"

If Arlene Holmes' latest statement is true, it means that she did not tell ABC News her son was likely the alleged culprit, calling into question the reporting of a network that has already been marred by one inaccuracy.

(PHOTOS: Obama visits Aurora)

In the very same article, published on Friday, ABC News initially suggested that the suspect might have connections to the Colorado Tea Party Patriots. The report, based off a single web profile of a man with the same name, was inaccurate. ABC News and one of the reporters, Brian Ross, later apologized for the "mistake" in a statement that now tops the very same article in questsion.

Sources tell POLITICO that on an editorial conference call this morning, ABC News SVP James Goldston said the network is taking steps to ensure that incorrect reports such as Ross's do not happen again.

A spokesperson with ABC News told POLITICO that it will address Arlene Holmes' statement in a forthcoming blog post later this afternoon.

Developing...

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/201 ... 29835.html

[Wombaticus Rex]

Mr. WRex, is it legal to sell body armor to civilians, or for civilians to possess such gear? I don't believe it is in either case.

You've probably figured this out on your own since asking, but: no, no it is not illegal at all. Pretty easy, actually. As someone who's grown up in the middle of gun culture, I am relentlessly bemused at the strange conceptions of gun laws that people have in America today.

I agree with the recreational shooter quoted in today's NYT: "I call 6000 rounds of ammunition running low."

[82_28]

What I am saying and like I spelled out above, is that the perp should have been worried he would be seen as he prepared -- if he acted completely alone and was dead set on doing the deed.

And that's bullshit WR. People pay hyper-vigilant attention to everything. Just last week somewhere up here someone noticed some suspicious powder -- turned out to be flour. What about Treyvon Martin? People are paying attention to hoodies and shit now. I also guarantee the center the cinema is in has roving security in place in probably several hybrid SUVs to stop skateboarding.

All that said, this is a remarkable amount of gear and firearms to be strapped on in a well lit parking lot and to not have somebody in some capacity help.

[brekin]

I just remembered this film by Uwe Bolle. From what I remember the main character
gets body armor and related items mailed to his friends house. After going on a murderous
spree he then murders his friend and frames him with the body armor.



The trailer is here, but from what I remember it is pretty graphic and those who have been
caught up in the Aurora shooting probably will not want to view it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJeFZ3D ... re=related

Rampage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampage_%282009_film%29

Rampage is a 2009 mass murder thriller film directed by Uwe Boll and starring Brendan Fletcher, Michael Paré, Shaun Sipos, Lynda Boyd and Robert Clarke.[1] Also appearing were Matt Frewer, Katharine Isabelle and Michaela Mann. Unlike many of Boll's previous directorial efforts, and despite sharing the name of a video game series, Rampage was not an adaptation of a video game.

Plot

In the fictional town of Tenderville, Oregon, a man drives up to a nearby forest and places a bag in an abandoned barrel before setting it ablaze. Two days earlier, Bill Williamson, a 23-year-old man living with his parents and working a low-paid job as a mechanic, feels bombarded with the problems of the world, by ubiquitous TV sets, radios, and the views of 21-year-old Evan Drince, who seems to be his sole friend. Bill's parents ask him to move out. Bill leaves for work, stopping to get coffee along the way, and argues with the shop owner when he is unsatisfied with his coffee. At work, he is victimized by his boss.

Back at home, Bill constructs a suit of body armor, complete with a ballistic helmet and a paintball mask. Armed with two submachine guns, he heads into the center of town. First, he incapacitates the police by car-bombing their headquarters with a remote-controlled, bomb-loaded van. He then walks through the streets, shooting people at random, and stops to kill the coffee shop owner. Two police officers open fire on him, but Bill's armor blocks the bullets and he kills both officers. He goes into a salon filled with several hiding women and takes off his mask in order to get a drink before leaving without shooting anyone, but then returns after realizing he revealed his identity to the salon occupants, all of which he kills.

Bill goes unnoticed into a bingo parlor, orders a sandwich, harasses the host, and leaves without shooting anyone. He concludes his rampage by robbing a bank, killing some of the employees and customers when they attempt to subdue him. Outside the bank, he secretly switches the money he stole with fake money and burns the fake money, shouting money is worthless and causes the problems of the world.

After killing a restaurant waitress while fleeing, Bill calls Evan, who is in a forest nearby expecting him for a mano-a-mano paintball competition. Bill drives to the forest and is pursued by several police officers, led by Sheriff Melvoy. Bill kills most of the officers with explosives and flees into the forest, pursued by Melvoy, the only surviving policeman. When he arrives at the forest, Bill ambushes Melvoy, stabbing him and leaving him to die. Finding Evan, Bill immobilizes him with a stun gun. He then places a pistol in Evan's hand and shoots him in the head to give the illusion of suicide. Bill puts the armor suit and weapons on Evan's corpse, leaves the forest, and burns remaining evidence in a barrel, thus revealing that he is the man at the beginning of the film.

Bill then returns home before his parents arrive with horror stories about the killings in town. While they are conversing in front of the television, news stations report that they have identified the killer as Evan, and that at least 93 people have been killed in the rampage. In his room, while packing his belongings and the stolen bank money, Bill hears a local television news report that police have arrested Evan's father, an activist during the Vietnam War era, who is accusing Bill of the crime and claiming the innocence of his son. The story concludes with a home video of Bill announcing his departure on a personal quest to unknown whereabouts, to further reduce the world's population. Text indicates Bill had disappeared from that point on, and two years later, his video recording found its way onto the Internet.[2][3][4]

[elfismiles]

Anticipating Aurora and Beyond
by Loren Coleman

What is next in our dawns? As I have mentioned before, Aurora means "dawn." Unfortunately, I must predict a copycat outburst for Friday, July 27th.
...
The known patterns of copycats are clear. Humans are imprinted with anniversary syndromes and timing markers that seem subtle to most, but are identifiable to behavior scientists, like me. In the case of suicide clusters, school shootings, going postal incidents, workplace violence, and other forms of mass and spree killings, I have ventured forth with predictions, sometimes. I have expectations of how humans react. Often they do. Sometimes they don't.

After Columbine, over 450 copycat events took place in North America. The CTV published an article about my predictions in 2006. One of the most telling predictions was my sense that something would occur exactly a week after Columbine. It did, when a school shooting happened in Taber, Alberta, only a week later. After Virginia Tech, many quotes of mine were used by the media demonstrating the predictive power of copycat insights.
...
In The Copycat Effect, the patterns I found in suicide clusters and school shootings happened over and over again in other kinds of mass shootings. In their most basic blueprint, the copycats take place exactly one week, two weeks, one month, and one year after a massively media-discussed incident of violence. The Aurora red dawn event is the first mass media incident in recent years. Wall-to-wall coverage has occurred, and copycats will happen. The correlation is direct. Why will we be surprised when the next theater shooting takes place?

Look, I predicted that something was going to happen related to the opening of The Dark Knight Rises. Yes, on July 20th. You can read my July 19th pondering about that here.

Therefore, I have to go out on a limb, again. If we get there without another copycat (one seems to have been reported in Maine, already), I look to this coming Friday, July 27th, as the next "danger hot zone" for another incident. Law enforcement personnel, movie theater owners and staff, and sports event venue managers need to be aware.

What is the next big event? Another showing of The Dark Knight Rises this Friday? The 2012 Summer Olympics, the XXX Olympiad, opening in London this Friday, July 27, 2012? How many people will gather in London? What kind of Joker copycat or terrorist might want to throw a bomb or tear gas canister into that crowd? This is called predictive preparatory planning to understand these patterns.

What are the next movie openings of note? Total Recall, Assassin's Bullet, and Soldier's Fortune on Friday August 2, 2012. Gangster Squad (with the film's gangsters shooting up a movie audience!!) on Friday, September 7, 2012. James Bond's Skyfall on Friday, November 9, 2012 (with Aurora in red on the Shanghai skyline).

What is fiction and what is nonfiction? Have the lines blurred? Yes, of course they have.

The copycat effect exists. The Joker is real, because the imaginary villains have become actual ones. A dozen people died in Aurora. The dawn has come, and it is here. We should pay attention. We all have been warned.

I sincerely hope no one else would ever die in another mass shooting. But to be blind to the patterns that are certainly there right in front of us is foolishness. Watch out for July 27th!
...


http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2012/ ... urora.html

Red Dawn
by Loren Coleman

We are entering an alternative reality, of sorts. In case you missed it, we have experienced a red dawn event.

http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2012/07/red-dawn.html

[Wombaticus Rex]

And that's bullshit WR. People pay hyper-vigilant attention to everything. Just last week somewhere up here someone noticed some suspicious powder -- turned out to be flour. What about Treyvon Martin? People are paying attention to hoodies and shit now. I also guarantee the center the cinema is in has roving security in place in probably several hybrid SUVs to stop skateboarding.

All that said, this is a remarkable amount of gear and firearms to be strapped on in a well lit parking lot and to not have somebody in some capacity help.

I disagree with your generalization -- I think mine fits the data better. Which is to say, we're both right but I'm right more of the time. Most people are oblivious to the point you could have you dick hanging out of your pants. Busybody neighborhood watch types are the exception to the rule, not the face of America.

As for the tactical gear, again, gotta ask: have you ever suited up? What heuristics are you using to make this evaluation? I can get my paintball armor on in about 30 seconds by myself.

I'm assuming most adult Americans have been dressing themselves successfully for quite some time.

[Luther Blissett]

My girlfriend just told me that it's not likely to have been possible for him to be drugged for his proceedings. It was either a real demeanor, or an act so he could be deemed unfit to stand trial.

[Bruce Dazzling]

I'm just responding to your post in a sort of thinking-out-loud way, 8bit, so if at the end it seems I've pulled it apart needlessly, please don't feel slighted cause you're someone I completely dig.

1. Why does it always come out that there's a parallel training exercise? Like with Oslo, exact bomb/mass shooting drill hours before(she, sure didnt help with preparedness)

and 7/7.. and there's another big one I'm missing. But I can't think of any pre-9.11. were there any?

Absolutely. There were many, for a couple of years before 9/11, that featured multiple hijackers on twin airliners, terrorist suicide plane crash attacks at the Pentagon, etc etc. There are rumors of one being planned for the morning of September 11, which I remember hearing about on the news in the immediate aftermath of the event. 9/11 set the stage for "military training" parallels as far as I'm aware.

http://web.archive.org/web/200608100150 ... jacobs.pdf

More 9/11 exercises.

From History Commons:

9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: 9/11-Style Simulation Set to Commence at Agency near Pentagon

A training exercise is scheduled to begin at a US intelligence agency located just over 20 miles from the Pentagon, based around the scenario of a small corporate jet plane experiencing a mechanical failure and crashing into a tower building there. The exercise, which has been planned for several months, is to take place at the headquarters of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Chantilly, Virginia, four miles away from Washington Dulles International Airport and 24 miles from the Pentagon. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 8/21/2002; UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 8/22/2002]

7:00 a.m. -9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: Preparations Continue at New York Pier for September 12 Bioterrorism Exercise

At Pier 92 on the Hudson River, preparations are underway for a training exercise due to take place there the following day. The exercise, called Tripod, which had been scheduled months earlier, is intended to test how well New York’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) can administer treatment in response to a biological-terrorism attack (see September 12, 2001). [NEW YORK MAGAZINE, 10/15/2001; GIULIANI, 2002, PP. 355] Pier 92, located just over four miles north-northwest of the World Trade Center, has been set up as a model distribution station where the simulated victims will be treated. [JENKINS AND EDWARDS-WINSLOW, 9/2003, PP. 15 AND 20] Ken Longert, the owner of a theatrical lighting business, arrives at the pier at 7:00 a.m. to help get the place ready for the exercise. He will later recall, “Two or three hundred cadets [presumably with the New York police and fire departments] were there, learning the proper procedures in case some kind of disaster hit New York.” Longert will recall that, seconds after the second WTC tower is hit at 9:03, “all the people from OEM disappeared” from the pier. [DIMARCO, 2007, PP. 457-458] After OEM’s original command center is destroyed when WTC 7—where it is located—collapses (see (5:20 p.m.) September 11, 2001), Pier 92 will be selected as the location for the substitute command center. [9/11 COMMISSION, 5/19/2004] Members of OEM staff have also arrived early this morning at the OEM offices in WTC 7 to prepare for the exercise (see 8:48 a.m. September 11, 2001). [JENKINS AND EDWARDS-WINSLOW, 9/2003, PP. 15]

[82_28]

And that's bullshit WR. People pay hyper-vigilant attention to everything. Just last week somewhere up here someone noticed some suspicious powder -- turned out to be flour. What about Treyvon Martin? People are paying attention to hoodies and shit now. I also guarantee the center the cinema is in has roving security in place in probably several hybrid SUVs to stop skateboarding.

All that said, this is a remarkable amount of gear and firearms to be strapped on in a well lit parking lot and to not have somebody in some capacity help.

I disagree with your generalization -- I think mine fits the data better. Which is to say, we're both right but I'm right more of the time. Most people are oblivious to the point you could have you dick hanging out of your pants. Busybody neighborhood watch types are the exception to the rule, not the face of America.

As for the tactical gear, again, gotta ask: have you ever suited up? What heuristics are you using to make this evaluation? I can get my paintball armor on in about 30 seconds by myself.

I'm assuming most adult Americans have been dressing themselves successfully for quite some time.

I've paintballed and no I've never suited up for the superduper kind of paintballing you're talking about with the automatic markers, so have no idea. I am only familiar with the helmet and face and throat guard -- the rest of the body being fair game. In paintballing we're talking armor made of plastics.

I can't believe you are honestly failing to see my point in speculating about how would someone, in a sense, know he was gonna complete his plans by suiting up in a probably crowded and lit parking lot with doubtless security detail (as all malls have) -- granted most the lot had been emptied because of the showtime of the movie. That's, as you say, at least 30 seconds of not having any protection from being seen. As you will note from media footage of this area -- there ain't no trees or thicket in Aurora. That's why we all in the Denver area have always called Aurora "Saudi Aurora".

My question is, if you were dead set on doing this and all of the planning down to dying the hair and booby trapping the apartment and etc etc, would you drive a small sedan to theater, go buy the ticket, let yourself out the emergency exit get suited up and take that chance as a loner of not being noticed at all?

There really isn't anything that hard to grok about my speculating here "given" that he allegedly acted alone.

Why would Holmes have taken that chance with the good possibility he could have been thwarted?

[Jeff]

Sometimes The Best Way To Memorialize a Tragedy Is To Not Memorialize At All

[barracuda]