Dark Knight Shooting: 12 Dead, 58 Injured

"The fire rises!" ~ Bane, The Dark Knight Rises, 2012.

A mass shooting occurred on July 20, 2012, at a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises, leaving 12 dead and 58 injured (some gravely), 15 minutes after the film began. The active shooting took place in Theater No. 9 at the Century 16 Movie Theaters, located at 14300 East Alameda Avenue in Aurora, Colorado. (News reports have said as high as 15 are dead, but as of 8:00 AM Eastern, CNN is reporting 12 have been killed. Double-counting caused the 15 count.)

The suspect (shown at top; TMZ discovered the colored-hair image) has been identified as recent Aurora resident James Eagan Holmes (born December 13, 1987), according to federal authorities. His parents live in San Diego. Spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery says 24-year-old James Holmes was a doctoral student at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver until last month. She did not know when he started school or why he withdrew. He apparently was a former biology (neuroscience) student in southern California.

Early on the morning of Friday, July 20, 2012, mountain time, at least 50 people were injured, twelve were killed, in a shooting at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, as the new Batman movie screened. The number was confirmed by Police Chief Dan Oates.
A 24-year-old suspect is in custody, Oates told reporters. "We don't have any evidence of a second gunman," he said.

Brenda Stuart, of 850 KOA radio, said that "a lot of people thought the gunshots were part of the movie. They heard what they thought were firecrackers. Then they saw the bullets flying."

Eyewitnesses reported the assailant appeared to be wearing a gas mask, body armor, similar to how the film's villain Bane did too. Witnesses say the suspect was dressed all in black, with a riot helmet, goggles, and a gas mask. Tear gas went off in the Century 16 Movie Theaters at the Aurora Town Center following the gunfire. Reports indicated bullets had passed from one theater into an adjoining one.

Police reported during the afternoon that Holmes did not look like Bane, after all. He first identified himself as "I am the Joker," and had his head and goatee hair painted red and did, somewhat, resemble (perhaps? under his body armor?) the Joker during attack.

The shooting scene was hectic. Three area hospitals were receiving victims, and police at the scene were taking victims to hospitals in their cars, not just waiting for ambulances. Nicole Williams, with the Swedish Medical Center of Englewood, Colorado, told KUSA-Denver the hospital was alerted to a mass-casualty incident at 1:15 a.m. local time Friday (3:15 a.m. ET).

The suspect James Holmes was arrested at the back of the theater, near a car (with Tennessee plates), with a gas mark, two handguns, an "AK-type" firearm and a shotgun.

The suspect James Holmes made statements that he had explosives at his apartment, which is located at Paris Street and 17th Avenue in North Aurora. A bomb squad was on site. There are reports this location is booby-trapped.

At the Twilight Language blog, yesterday, I indicated we should be alert to a possible violent incident occurring on July 20, 2012.

Andrew Griffin's excellent overview, "Midnight Massacre in Theatre No. 9," at the Red Dirt Report is also worthy of reading.

Please now find more, historically, here: Joker Copycats: 2008-2012.

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Victims

Jessica Ghawi/Jessica Redfield, killed in Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting (NY Daily News)

The shooting at the food court at the Eaton Centre mall, in Toronto, Canada, took place on Saturday evening, June 02, 2012. Several people were wounded. Media accounts told of one dead, and seven wounded. One high profile witness was Blue Jays 3B Brett Lawrie. One of the dead victims of the Aurora shooting has turned out to be Jessica Ghawi, an aspiring sportscaster, who happened to almost have been shot during the Eaton shooting. Her immediate pre-The Dark Knight Rises tweets have been published.

A six-year-old is said to be among the fatalities.

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Synchromystic Threads


"It is always darkest just before the day dawneth." - English theologian and historian Thomas Fuller (1608 – 1661)

(Video referral: RPJ/Miguel)

Harvey Dent:

"The night is darkest just before the dawn. 

And I promise you, the dawn is coming." 

~ The Dark Knight (2008)

The name Aurora means "dawn." The Roman goddess of the dawn was named Aurora, and her siblings are Sol (Sun) and Luna (Moon). These names in Latin and Greek are Aurora/Eos, Sol/Helios, Luna/Selene.

Anne Hathaway/Catwoman's public persona character in The Dark Knight Rises is named Selene Kyle (Selene = Moon, Kyle = Strait of Water/River).


Aurora is an extremely popular name in Norway, being the 16th most used in 2006.

Aurora is a suburb less than 10 miles east of downtown Denver. Aurora originated in the 1880s as the town of Fletcher, taking its name from Denver businessman Donald Fletcher, who saw it as a real estate opportunity. He and his partners staked out four square miles east of Denver, but the town - and Colorado - struggled mightily after the Silver Crash of 1893. At that point Fletcher skipped town, leaving the community with a huge water debt. Inhabitants decided to rename the town Aurora in 1907, after one of the subdivisions composing the town.

Colorado is of Spanish origin, meaning "colored red" and "ruddy."

The memories of Columbine (20 miles away from Aurora) are being recalled by the Colorado and other media.

The Aurora name is familiar to investigators of the unexplained due to the the Aurora, Texas, Airship incident that reportedly occurred on April 17, 1897, in Aurora, Texas, a small town in the northwest corner of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The incident (similar to the more famous Roswell UFO incident 50 years later) allegedly resulted in a fatality from the crash. The alleged alien body is reportedly buried in an unmarked grave at the local Aurora cemetery.

The suspect's name translates as James = "he who supplants," Eagan = "fiery," and Holmes = "holly" and/or "island in the river."

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Personal Note

Why am I up this early, as Willie Geist often asks, specifically reporting on this event? Well, I was startled from my sleep, at 4:27 am Eastern, on this morning of July 20th, by what sounded like someone calling my name; I literally thought there was a person in my bedroom. Then I checked the news and heard about the Aurora shooting. I have never had such a startling awakening. Yes, I am open to Forteana, but I do not consider myself involved in psychic phenomena, per se, so this was an unusual personal incident for me.