Victims As Young As Six Reported
12 people are dead and an estimated 50 more have been wounded by a lone gunman shooting randomly into the premiere of the “Batman: The Dark Knight Rises” movie minutes after midnight in a Colorado multiplex, according to multiple reports. The assassin, who first threw a teargas canister into the theater he reportedly accessed from an outside exit, was subdued and taken into custody by police after a call at 12:39 AM local time. Ten people died at the Century Aurora 16 multiplex theater in Aurora, Colorado, and four died at or on the way to the hospital.
UPDATE: NBC reports the gunman James Holmes, born 12/13/87.
“Witnesses said gunman wore a gas mask and was clad in black,” the Denver Post reported:
A witness, Benjamin Fernandez, 30, said he was watching the movie when he heard a series of explosions. He said that people ran from the theater and there were gunshots as police shouted ‘get down!”
Frenandez said he saw people falling, including one young girl.
Salina Jordan, 19, was in Theater 8 and saw people hit in her theater. She said one girl was struck in cheek, others in stomach including a girl who looked to be around 9 years old.
Jordan said it sounded like firecrackers until someone ran into Theater 8 yelling “they’re shooting out here!”
The police came running in, telling people to run out. Some police were carrying or dragging bodies, she said.
…
Robert Jones, 28, was in Theater 9 when the shooting started.
Jones said when he first saw smoke billowing from the front of the theater, he thought it was a special effect. Shots rang out almost immediately after.
“I thought it was pretty much the end of the world,” Roberts said.
Roberts stayed flat on the ground until police came into the theater.
Tammi Stevens said her son, 18-year-old Jacob Stevens, was inside Theater 9 when the shooting started. Stevens was waiting for her son at Gateway High School while police interviewed him.
Jacob told his mom that he saw a guy walk into the theater wearing body armor and throw some sort of cannister that then emitted some sort of gas.
“You let your kids go to a late night movie…you never think something like this would happen,” Stevens said.
CNN adds:
Aurora, a Denver suburb, is about 13 miles from Littleton, Colorado — site of the April 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
In that incident, two teenage students, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, armed themselves with guns and bombs and opened fire inside the high school. They killed 13 people and wounding 23 others before killing themselves.
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Editor’s note: This report has been updated to reflect the change in the number of reported dead from 14 to 12.