Gunman Kills 12 in Colorado, Reviving Gun Debate
Mr. Holmes also purchased online multiple magazines for the assault rifle, including one 100-round drum magazine. “With that drum magazine, he could have gotten off 50, 60 rounds, even if it was semiautomatic, within one minute,” Chief Oates said.
The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has given information on where and when the guns were purchased to the police in Aurora.
After the chaos — the evacuation, the rush of 911 calls beginning at 12:39 a.m., the mass casualties rushed to area hospitals, the images that witnesses described to authorities of dead or dying friends or loved ones left inside — the emerging details got more mysterious and in some ways more horrifying still.
“Our investigation determined his apartment is booby trapped with various incendiary and chemical devices and apparent trip wires,” Chief Oates said around midday Friday. “We have an active and difficult scene. It may be resolved in hours or days. We simply don’t know how we’re going to handle that.” Federal law enforcement officials said that the apartment had been so extensively booby-trapped that the devices could not be safely defused and that a robot would be sent to trigger them. Late Friday, the dozens of residents in five apartment buildings in the area remained evacuated.
“It is a very vexing problem how to enter that apartment safely,” Chief Oates said. “Personally I’ve never seen anything like what the pictures show us is in there. I’m a layman when it comes to bomb stuff. I see an awful lot of wires. Trip wires. Jars full of ammunition. Jars full of liquid. Some things that look like mortar rounds. We have a lot of challenges to get in there safely.”
In the suspect’s neighborhood of low-slung, red-brick apartment buildings and dusty lots, not far from Children’s Hospital Colorado, where some of the victims were taken, neighbors shook their heads in disbelief as the police and bomb squad vehicles cordoned off the area.
“I think this is a lot like Columbine,” said Jennifer Evans, who lives near Mr. Holmes’s apartment. “This is crazy.”
At one point, as shirtless children played in an overgrown front yard and day laborers stared in disbelief, firefighters in a hook and ladder truck smashed a window in the third story of the building where the police said Mr. Holmes resided.
Whether a violent movie had inspired violence in real life, or was merely the coincidental setting, police authorities in some other cities, including New York, said they were taking no chances and had increased security at theaters showing the movie.
In Paris, Warner Bros. canceled a red-carpet premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises,” along with other promotional events. On Friday afternoon workers removed a giant Batman mask that had been mounted on the front of a theater along the Champs-Élysées, where the screening was to take place.
Warner Bros., which is owned by Time Warner, released a statement Friday, saying that the company and the filmmakers were “deeply saddened” and “extend our sincere sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims at this tragic time.” Several broadcast networks and cable channels stopped running commercials on Friday for “The Dark Knight Rises.”
The shooting inevitably stirred memories of Columbine High School and the murders there in April 1999, when two heavily armed students stalked through the hallways, killing 12 students and a teacher as they went, before shooting themselves.
And the psychological echo and the similar feel of the two massacres was palpable: Theater 9 was a place of seeming safety, if not sanctuary, not unlike Columbine’s library, where some of the killings occurred. Both were ordinary settings that became death traps.
Mr. Holmes seemed ordinary too, for the most part, said Billy Kromka, a premed student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who worked with Mr. Holmes for three months last summer as a research assistant.
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/shooting-at-colorado-theater-showing-batman-movie.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1[/url]
Aurora, Colorado Shooting: Inside James Holmes' Apartment
[CENTER][video=youtube;uxOwgvgfP1Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxOwgvgfP1Y&feature=relmfu[/video][/CENTER]
Published on Jul 20, 2012 by ABCNews
Police find trip wires, booby traps in alleged shooter's home.
A Glance at US Mass Shootings in Recent Years:
[LIST][*]March 29, 2009: Robert Stewart, 45, đã bắn và giết 8 người tại Pinelake Health and Rehab, thành phố Carthage tiểu bang N.C. Cảnh sát đã bắn chết hắn để chấm dứt cuộc thảm sát.
[*]March 29, 2009: Tại thành phố Santa Clara, California.
Devan Kalathat, 42, đã bắn và giết 2 trẻ em và 3 người bà con. Sau đó tự sát. Vợ của hắn đã bị thương rất nặng.
[*]March 10, 2009: Tại khu vực nông thôn của bang Alabama.
Michael McLendon, 28, đã giết chết 10 người bao gồm mẹ của hắn, 4 người bà con và vợ cùng đứa con của viên cảnh sát trưởng địa phương. Sau đó hắn ta đã tự sát.
[*]Feb. 14, 2008: Steven Kazmierczak, 27, sinh viên đã bắn chết 5 sinh viên và làm bị thương 18 người khác tại trường học Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Sau đó hắn đã tự sát.
[*]Dec. 5, 2007: Robert A. Hawkins, 19, đã bắn chết 8 người và gây thương tích 5 người khác, sau đó đã tự sát. Cuộc thảm sát xảy ra trong tiệm Von Maur trong Mall của thành phố Omaha bang Neb.
[*]April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, đã bắn chết 32 người tại trường học Virgina Tech, thành phố Blacksburg, sau đó hắn đã tự sát. [COLOR="#B22222"]Đây là cuộc thảm sát có nhiều người chết nhứt trong lịch sữ Mỹ[/COLOR].
[*]Oct. 2, 2006: Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, bắn chết 5 cô gái tại trường học West Nickel Mines Amish trong tiểu bang Pennsylvania, sau đó đã tự sát.
[*]March 21, 2005: Student Jeffrey Weise, 16, đã giết chết 9 người bao gồm ông nội, bạn của ông nội của hắn tại nhà. Cả 5 học sinh, 1 thầy giáo và 1 bảo vệ cũng bị giết tại trường trung học Red Lake thuộc thành phố Red Lake, bang Minn. Sau đó hắn ta đã tự sát. Có 7 học sinh khác bị thương.
[*]March 12, 2005: Terry Ratzmann, 44, đã bắn chết 7 người, làm bị thương 4 người tại thành phố Brookfield bang Wisconsin. Sau đó, hắn ta đã tự sát.
[*]March 5, 2001: Charles "Andy" Williams, 15, đã bắn chết 2 học sinh và gây thương tích cho 13 học sinh khác tại trường trung học Santana trong thành phố Santee bang Calif.[/LIST]
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Trên đây chỉ là tóm tắt của những cuộc bắn giết tàn sát người vô tội của những thằng súc vật điên khùng trong những năm 2000.
Những năm 1900 cũng xãy ra khoãng 7 vụ bắn giết tàn sát dã man.....
[I][SIZE=1]Dean Nguyen tóm tắt từ Local News[/SIZE][/I].
