Dark Knight Shootings — Update
Colorado officials state they believe James Holmes, 24, the man they charged with killing at least 12 people and wounding over 70 others at The Dark Knight Rises screening in Aurora acted alone. He was arrested minutes after the incident was phoned in wearing a helmut, a gas-mask and a bullet-proof vest and carrying two Glocks and rifle. Holmes’ hair was dyed red and referred to himself as “the Joker.” Whereas he offered no resistance and waited for the police near his car in the multiplex parking lot, Holmes’ apartment is heavily booby-trapped with incendiary devices and people living in his building and at least four other buildings have been evacuated.
The usual flame-throwers in the media responded in their sadly predictable manner. The Washington Examiner suggested the shooter was acting out a scene from Frank Miller’s Dark Knight comics. ABC suggested the shooter was a Tea Party member; they later recanted. Countless individuals are blaming the incident on a lack of appropriate gun control. Various police departments across the country have dispatched officers to ward against copycat killers, and Warner Bros. has withdrawn the trailer to their movie Gangster Squad, which was attached to The Dark Knight Rises.
Holmes had been in the University of Colorado’s neuroscience studies program studying towards his PhD. He was in the process of withdrawing from the program at the time of this incident.
AMC Theaters has banned costumed attendees.
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Of course, Holmes apparently entered normally, slipped out an emergency exit, leaving it propped ajar, changed into his body armour – he apparently had damn near full armour.- and came back in.
Would not surprise me.
To be honest – generally, i find that the people who attend films in costume tend to be people who, if i knew them, i might pretend not to know in public even if they weren’t in costume, if that tortured sentence conveys its meaning at all…
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(Of course, there were my friends in the Atlanta SCA who attended Monty Python and the Holy Grail in costume in exchange for getting in free, way back in 1975. Them i slipped in with, even though i wasn’t in garb…)