E-Paper
Colorado killer refuses to speak: investigators
University of Colorado officials were looking Sunday into whether James Holmes used his position in a graduate programme to collect hazardous materials, but school officials weren’t saying whether they knew the suspect in a movie theatre massacre was anything more than a hard-working student.
University of Colorado officials were looking Sunday into whether James Holmes used his position in a graduate programme to collect hazardous materials, but school officials weren’t saying whether they knew the suspect in a movie theatre massacre was anything more than a hard-working student.
Law enforcement officials also revealed that Holmes, 24, has not been cooperating with them and that it could take months to learn what prompted the attack early Friday on a packed theater of moviegoers watching the premiere of the latest Batman movie. The assault killed 12 and left 58 wounded.
Investigators found a Batman mask inside Holmes’ apartment after they finished clearing the home of booby traps and ammunition, a law enforcement official close to the investigation said Sunday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama flew to Colorado for a few hours to comfort residents in a state that's critical to the November election. He began his visit with the family members of the victims at the University of Colorado Hospital, which treated 23 of the people injured 10 remain there, seven hurt critically. The hospital is a short drive from the site of the shooting. After meeting with the families, he said that he was there "not as president but as a father and a husband."
He said that "we can all understand what it would be to have someone taken from us in this fashion."
Holmes was being held in solitary confinement at a Denver-area county detention facility, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said, and is "lawyered up."
“He’s not talking to us,” the chief said. He is scheduled for an initial hearing Monday at 9:30 am MDT, and has been assigned a public defender.
Police have said that Holmes began buying guns at Denver-area stores nearly two months before Friday's shooting and that he received at least 50 packages in four months at his home and at school. Also on Sunday, a gun range owner east of Denver said he recently rejected a membership application from Holmes in part because of a bizarre voice mail greeting on Holmes’ phone.
