By NBC News staff
Updated at 7:51 a.m. ET: Fourteen people were killed and at least 50 others wounded early Friday when a gunman opened fire at a midnight screening of the summer blockbuster "The Dark Knight Rises" near Denver, authorities and witnesses said.
Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told reporters that 10 people died at the scene and four others died after being taken to local hospitals. A three-month-old and a six-year-old girl were among those treated, according to reports.
Police said the gunman had appeared at the front of the theater during the movie and released a canister which let out a hissing sound, which is believed to be tear gas. Witnesses told reporters that gunfire erupted during a shootout scene in the film.This will undoubtedly do more to advance the anti-gun forces than Fast and Furious. 300 dead Mexicans and a couple of Border Agents? meh. Mass murder and chaos in the suburbs of Denver? That's going to get someone's attention. And of course the OBVIOUS answer is to further disarm the people who were -- OBVIOUSLY -- already unarmed. The bad guy in this won't be deterred by more gun laws. He'll be encouraged. He put a lot of effort into this personally choreographed horror show.
A 24-year-old male suspect was apprehended in the shopping center's parking lot, Oates said.
The incident occurred in the Century 16 Movie Theaters at the Aurora Town Center, police told NBC News. Aurora is a suburb less than 10 miles east of downtown Denver.
NBC station KUSA-Denver cited a witness as seeing a black-clad 6-foot-tall man wearing a riot helmet, goggles and bullet-proof vest.If 10 or 15 people in that theater had been carrying, there would have been a different outcome. Guaranteed. Or better yet, if it could be presumed that 10 to 15 people could possibly have weapons with them in any given movie theater, that gunman might have just decided not to go something this stupid after all.
People do make different choices based on different assumptions.
UPDATED!!!
It's Rush Limbaugh's fault. If he would just stop talking about freedom and shit, then no one would be pissed.
AAAHHH! Tea Party! ahhh...no.
UPDATED AGAIN!!!
FROM ACE OF SPADES HQ:
The Dog That Didn't Bark: Given we now know his birthdate and both of his street addresses (his family's, and his own, in Aurora), and yet we have no records of political activism yet, I'm going to guess myself: This is a Loughner situation.UPDATED YET AGAIN!!!
The brilliant David Burge of Iowahawk delivers the beat down to ABC's Brian Ross:
@BrianRoss Don't worry. The killer will turn out to be a Tea Partier in the next episode of Aaron Sorkin's shitty TV show.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 20, 2012
Its a shame there was no internet cafe grandpa on hand.
ReplyDeleteYou're not kidding. That's exactly what I said to my daughter when she learned about it this morning. We had laughed over the internet cafe video, loving the way it turned out, only a couple days ago...and now this horrendous mass murder. Even though the nutjob was well-armed and suited up, if a couple of people in that theater had been armed, it would absolutely have changed the equation. Even if only to distract the madman long enough to stop the murdering. Word is the police were there in less than 1 min and 1/2. 90 seconds. Someone might have been able to pin the sob down for that long.
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