By Joe Mozingo and Matt Stevens, Los Angeles Times –
LOS ANGELES — The suspect in the Colorado shooting Friday was described as a shy but polite, highly intelligent young man with a gift for science. He grew up in an affluent suburb of San Diego, played soccer and ran cross-country in high school, and graduated with honors at the University of California, Riverside with a degree in neuroscience.
Few details in the emerging sketch of James E. Holmes — the 24-year-old alleged to have killed at least 12 people and injured 58 others at a movie theater — offer any answer to the question Americans find themselves once again asking after a gun rampage: Why?
(PHOTO: Law enforcement sources have identified James Holmes, 24, as the suspect in a mass shooting at a movie theater screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in the Denver suburb of Aurora, July 20, 2012. The University of Colorado Denver|Aschutz Medical Campus confirmed that Holmes was in the process of withdrawing from UC Denver’s graduate program in neurosciences.)
Friends and neighbors were baffled, and Holmes left no clues online as to his potential motives or mental state. Authorities say he booby-trapped his apartment in Aurora, Colo., with explosives and chemical devices, and they were still working to disable them late Friday before they could collect evidence that might yield insight into his thinking.
The suspect had been pursuing a doctorate in neuroscience at the University of Colorado, Denver Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora for a year, but had begun the process of withdrawing from the program last month, officials said. It is not clear what triggered his decision to drop out, although some reports suggested he was having troubles with his studies.
The attack appears to have been carefully planned. Carrying an AR-15 assault-style rifle, a shotgun and two Glock pistols, the killer walked into a multiplex theater screening the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rising,” with dyed red hair and saying he was the Joker, according to law enforcement. He wore a gas mask, a ballistics helmet and vest, and groin, throat and leg protectors. He released two smoke-emitting devices, and then opened fire, shooting anyone who tried to escape. He was arrested without incident in a white Hyundai in a parking lot nearby.
The Aurora police chief said Holmes bought each of the four guns from retailers over the last two months and purchased 3,000 rounds for the assault rifle, 3,000 for the two Glocks and 300 for the shotgun.
Kaitlyn Fonzi, 20, a graduate student who says she lives in the apartment below the suspect, told the Associated Press that she heard techno-like music reverberating from his apartment around midnight. She went upstairs and felt the door was unlocked, but she didn’t open it.
“I yelled out and told him I was going to call the cops and went back to my apartment,” she said.
When she called police, she was told they were busy with a shooting and could not respond to her complaint. She said she was shaken to hear that the apartment was booby-trapped, and she suspected the music had been set on a timer at the time of the shootings.
“I’m concerned if I had opened the door, I would have set it off,” she said.
Holmes’ father, Robert, a software engineer, left the family’s home in Rancho Penasquitos Friday morning with a police escort, while his mother, Arlene, a registered nurse, remained at home.”
A neighbor described Holmes as a very shy, well-mannered young man who was heavily involved in the local Presbyterian church.
“He seemed to be a normal kid. I don’t know what triggered it,” said Tom Mai, a retired electrical engineer. “This makes me very sad.”
His comments were echoed by many who had passing acquaintance with Holmes. Few seemed to know him intimately, but he was not totally withdrawn; he had friends and played sports. His junior varsity soccer photo shows him looking confidently into the camera wearing his No. 16 jersey.
One fellow Westview High School student, who asked not to be identified, listened as people reviled the suspect all morning, and only at lunch did he learn they were talking about his old classmate.
“I got a call from another friend who asked, ‘Do you know who it is? Jimmy Holmes,’ “ he said. “I was silent and no longer hungry.”
He said he and Holmes were part of a four-person group that ate together during their sophomore and junior years. “We had the same humor,” the friend said. “We were all people who didn’t have go-to best friends, so we all ate lunch together.”
He said that Holmes had a “dark, sarcastic kind of humor” but that he never “read it as psychotic,” and he wasn’t notably introverted within their circle.
“Looking back, I guess he was dorky, and so was I. He wasn’t quiet, but he didn’t make a big effort to make friends.”
UC Riverside Chancellor Timothy P. White said that Holmes was an honor student as an undergraduate there. He had no run-ins with police on campus or anything else that would foreshadow what happened. White said professors who knew Holmes expressed disbelief about what occurred.
“We are very deeply saddened by this horrific event,” he said.
He said neurological sciences is a rigorous area of study on campus. “He was an honor student, so academically, he was at the top of the top,” he said.
Jessica Cade, 23, a graduate student at UC Riverside, lived in the same honors dorm as Holmes and said that she would occasionally go out with him with friends.
“He was a very nice guy. He was very, very smart, a little weird, kind of like you’d expect a really smart guy to be,” Cade said. She said that Holmes and other young men in the dorm often played video games, especially Guitar Hero, but nothing out of the ordinary.
“They’re calling him ‘deranged’ and a ‘lunatic.’ Never in a million years would that have crossed my mind,” Cade said. “I was horrified when I saw his picture on the news. I was very close to fainting in the office.”
Holmes appears to have left little or record of his thoughts or activities online, with no Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Myspace accounts under his name. He had no previous run-ins with law enforcement.
I can’t go along with the torture aspect of Watchdog’s post but I do agree there are some questions that need answers. I also agree that we need to keep our 2 amendment rights. Colo. already had strict gun laws. So does Illinois. And where are all the news reports of gun violence? If evil wants to kill it will use a gun, a bomb, a knife, a bat, a rock, it’s bare hands…anything it can get its hands on.
As for the mental illness, bullied stuff…I don’t want to hear it. Pop psychology has made a mess of our culture. Yes there is real mental illness and real change that needs to happen in regard to dealing with it. But some of that change needs to be that people no longer get to cloak themselves in a DSM IV diagnosis which in turn gives them a lifetime pass to play a victim and thus take no responsibilty for any of their actions past, present, or future.
If you blame (your parents, society, past events, etc)for everything that is wrong in your life then you also have to give it/them credit for everything that is right. That is the work and you have to do the work to get to a point where you understand this, stop only seeing the blame and giving it complete control and start seeing it for what it was. Part of who your are and who you will be but something you can take control of and become master of your own destiny.
Mental illness does not excuse one’s behavior. It may factor into explaining it but it doesn’t excuse it.
The Aurora shooter left far far too many real victims in his wake. Forgiveness is not something I’ve heard he desires and certainly is not mine to give him. He can only receive that from the true victims and from his higher power if he has one.
As for me, I refuse to spend more time and energy trying to understand the evil when I could be directing that time and energy to praying for the victims, going out and volunteering to help those that want help, and trying every day to be a better person to my friends,family and community.
Peace be with you.
Goes without saying, he is nuts!
The real question is, “What made him nuts?”
Could be genetic, upbringing, drugs, mind control by others, ect.
This may be a good time to use torture, (sleep deprivation, water boarding, or pins under the finger nails, ect.) to get some answers. It’s pretty obvious that the death penalty and long term incarceration isn’t working as a deterrent. If it were up to me, people like this would become organ donors. When we have a tissue match he or she could kiss their ass goodbye.
I read he isn’t talking. Well, make him talk. Make him miserable enough and he will sing like a bird. I do want some answer’s.
There is some talk that this incident is somehow related to the upcoming UN Vote on gun control. Goes like this. Create a horrific event like this to get the masses to go alone with the notion that we need gun control. Hard to swallow that one but then again who knows?
For me, every one should carry a gun so the gun control idea isn’t the answer. People hell bent on this kind of killing won’t be stopped with a UN Resolution on taking away our guns.
One never knows what to think when it comes to the getting to the truth. On think for sure, we can not count on the media reports. At this point I have tuned out the media on this one.
Still, I want some answers!
He was probably bullied as a kid. And he may have been hiding mental illness since he was such a loner. Who knows, but something went terribly wrong with this guy who was so intelligent. I find it interesting that he told the cops his apartment was booby-trapped. It’s almost as if he had an alternate personality that decided not to kill more people and to surrender. It will be interesting to see what is on his computer if he didn’t scrub it first. I’m not making excuses for him, only grasping at explanations.