At Least 12 Killed, 50 Injured in Colorado Movie Shooting

(Updates with death tally in first paragraph.)

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- At least 12 people were killed and as many as 50 injured when a gunman in a gas mask opened fire about 12:30 a.m. in a theater showing the new Batman movie in Aurora, near Denver, Colorado.

Police found explosives in the home of a 24-year-old man arrested in a car at the shopping mall that housed the theater, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told reporters. The suspect is James Holmes, ABC News reported, citing unidentified federal authorities.

“We have no evidence of additional shooters,” Oates said. “The gunman was found in a car in the parking lot with a rifle, handgun, gas mask.”

It was not the Denver area’s first mass killing. In 1999, two students shot 12 classmates and a teacher in Columbine High School in suburban Denver before killing themselves. Two days ago in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a gunman opened fire on a crowded bar with an assault rifle, wounding 17.

“The Dark Knight Rises” is rated PG-13 and there were many children at the sold-out show, including some in costumes, at the Century 16 Movie Theaters at the Aurora Town Center. One of the dead was a 3-month-old child, the Denver Post reported.

Police brought witnesses who were unhurt to nearby Gateway High School. Police formed a security perimeter around the school, stationing cruisers throughout its parking lot. About 6:30 a.m. local time a man left the auditorium in a blood- drenched shirt and was driven away in a police cruiser.

Evelyn Marquez, 20, and her boyfriend, Fernando Santos, 20, said in an interview today that the theater was packed.

Opening Fire

They were sitting in the middle section when about 30 minutes into the movie a man clad in black entered through an exit door, stood near them, and threw the bomb down some stairs. No one moved.

“It took us a couple of seconds to really realize what was going on,” Santos said.

The theater filled with acrid smoke and breathing became difficult, he said.

The man lifted what they thought was a stick. It was a gun. Santos and Marquez hit the ground and people began crawling over them, she said. Sparks flew off seats behind them, Santos said. He said he saw people struck by bullets.

They crawled to an exit.

Facing Him

Jennifer Seeger, 22, who is studying to be an emergency medical technician, said the man pointed his gun at her. She said she dove to the ground and sensed bullets flying by her face.

One teenage victim, she said, had a bullet in his back.

“I felt his pulse,” she said. “It was really weak. Everyone said ‘Run, run.’ I tried to pull him out, but he was too heavy.”

Emma Goos, 19, a student at St. John’s College in New Mexico, said she lost a shoe trying to escape the theater. She said people slipped on a theater floor greasy with popcorn butter.

Police, she said, were weeping in the parking lot.

A mortician summoned to the scene told Channel 7 that the bomb consisted of metal shards and pepper spray or pepper gas.

Bullets and shrapnel pierced the wall of an adjoining theater, witness Hayden Miller told 9News. Several children were among the victims, the television channel said.

Clean Rap Sheet

Oates said the suspect was arrested in a car at the mall and that a search of his apartment, also in Aurora, uncovered more explosives. CNN reported that authorities seized an assault weapon, a rifle and two handguns.

Holmes had no history with police other than a traffic ticket, 9News reported.

President Barack Obama said he and first lady Michelle Obama were “shocked and saddened by the horrific and tragic shooting.”

“Federal and local law enforcement are still responding, and my administration will do everything that we can to support the people of Aurora,” he said in a statement issued by the White House.

Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president, said he was “praying for the families and loved ones of the victims during this time of deep shock and immense grief.”

Miller, the witness, told 9News that the scene was “surreal and scary.”

“It was something like you would see in a movie,” he said.

--With assistance from Stephen Merelman in New York. Editors: Stephen Merelman, Stacie Servetah

To contact the reporters on this story: Vincent Del Giudice in Denver at vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net; Jennifer Oldham in Denver at joldham1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net