Friday, July 20, 2012

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.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't you think there are any links to the Utoya terrorist attack in Norway? It occured almost exactly one year ago (two days from now). And this whole Aurora connection with Norway is also kind of creepy.

aferrismoon said...

The dark Night rises at dawn.

Re: Norway connexion - sounds like the attacker was dressed as a policeman, not unlike Breivik at Utoya.

The tarot card 'Death' is the 14th card, while it corresponds to hebrew letter NVN 'noon' which enumerates to 50.

cheers

Jason said...

Don't forget to the mention the "Willard" connection mentioned a few entries down by Jim Brandon. I was reminded of this when, after seeing the report of the shooting on TV, the Fred Willard arrest story was in my morning paper.

Also, connecting to Aurora, one of your commenters explained the meaning behind "Selena Kyle" which is connected to the moon.

Television news reports this morning are conjuring the spectres of Columbine, Ft Hood, Va Tech and the Giffords shooting. Noticed also that this guy was standing calmly while captured, making no effort to flee.

Anonymous said...

Tragic coincidence?

http://www.businessinsider.com/jessica-redfield-victim-colorado-aurora-shooting-blog-post-2012-7

Jason said...

Don't know if you've mentioned yet or not, but today is the first of Ramadan - which is the 9th month of the lunar calendar; being another connection to Theatre No. 9 mentioned in the Red Dirt Report and lunar/solar/phoenix symbolism from the movie. NBC was reporting the shooter might have dressed up as Bane.

Brizdaz (Darren) said...

I notice that
"The Grateful Dead Birthday Celebration "
Opens August 1, 2012 at the Aurora according to their website.
Ironically August 1 (1966) was the day that Charles Whitman kills 16 people at The University of Texas at Austin.

Brizdaz (Darren) said...

Also talking about August 1st in the above comment of mine,
August 1st,1876,Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state.
38 injured ?!

Anonymous said...

oddly there used to be a university 3 miles from the cinema called NOTRE DAME DE LAFAYETTE UNIVERSITY
Formerly at:
941 South Havana
Aurora, Colorado 80012

Anonymous said...

Another angle to consider is the date -- the "dog days" of summer, named after the helical rising of Sirius. In ancient times, the date was assigned to July 19th. Now, due to the precession of the equinox and the change to the Gregorian calendar, Sirius is "in conjunction" with the sun around July 4th -- an interesting date to consider. If we take into account the Julian calendar Russia was using at the time, the last Tsar and his family were martyred on July Fourth as well. New reports have reported someone may have received a phone call at the beginning of the movie and may have let the shooter in after the latter apparently knocked on the exit door. Canis Major and Canis Minor, with one hidden in secrecy. "The Dark Knight Rising" indeed --

http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/CanisMajor.html

Anonymous said...

"Was the Batman movie shooting imitated from scene in 1986 comic?"

http://washingtonexaminer.com/batman-movie-shooting-imitated-from-scene-in-1985-comic/article/2502701

Mentions porn theater, ala Willard.

stargurl said...

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

His name has a lot of celtic roots (James = Seamus, pronounced Shaymus, kinda like Shaman).

And the timing is related to an old celtic cross-quarter holiday, Lughnassadh that culminates in a fire sacrifice on August 1st, the cross-quarter holiday Lughnasadh. Lugh, or the Oak King (Summer), sup"plants" the Holly King (Winter) in a fire ceremony (wickerman).

Anonymous said...

New York mayor? saying he entered theatre looking like the Joker?

Anonymous said...

New York Police saying he had hair painted red and resembled the Joker during attack.

So the gas mask? Riot helmet??

Anonymous said...

About a couple of hours ago I was watching CNN and, live, on air, the newscaster was talking to a witness at the theater, who said another member of the audience took a call before the movie started. The person when to the back of the theater, near the exit, and appeared to open the door. About 15 minutes later, that's when the gunman burst into the theater. Now, the caller was on a cellphone and the newscaster was struggling to get the facts straight with them. That is what I understood the caller-witness was saying, but I felt the newscaster did not work hard enough to get this important fact cleared up entirely. Then, the newscaster seemed to drop that line of discussion to explore other elements of the experience from the witness. Please let me know if anyone else saw this, understood it similarly, or if any other news outlets have picked up on this detail.

Anonymous said...

Look into the NSA facility about 2.3 miles to the NE of the incident...

Anonymous said...

It's also interesting that the alleged shooter claimed to be "the Joker." The joker has all sorts of resonance with the Fool tarot card. Jungian archetypes or synco-mysticism -- it's a strange coincidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fool_%28Tarot_card%29

Anonymous said...

OK, I'm the guy that left the earlier message about a witness who saw another man, inside the theater, open the exit down so Holmes (or whoever -- let's remember he was wearing a gas mask) could enter the theater through the exit. Here is a link to an interview with that witness: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755884/
This links to Politics Nation website. On the left side, scroll down to the screen that has a black man being interviewed with the caption under the screen: "Witness: 'We tried to bear crawl our way out of there' -- then, at 4:49, he begins to talk about the man in front of him who receives a call on his cellphone, then gets up and cracks open the door for the gunman to burst through later. I don't know what scares me more about this: that there is a conspiracy of some sort...or that NO ONE, not the interviewer, not Sharpton, NO ONE -- picks up on this and questions him further about it.

Django said...

Accomplice?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHP3ich754&

ZHP said...

Aurora, Illinois was where "Wayne's World" was fictionally broadcast from...Bruce(NSA)Wayne's world is in Colorado, I guess.

Anonymous said...

Aurora also means "light."

Also, Holmes' apartment is on Paris Street. Paris is called "the City of Light."

So, he lived on City of Light Street in a city named Light, and committed a massacre at night at The Dark Knight Returns.

I'm not big on duality, but this sounds like a script for good vs. evil, light vs. dark.

Anonymous said...

Interesting possible clues indeed!

In my opinion, the announcement of the capture of."The God Particle" made on "July 4th." (Independence Day)... The original symbol of The U.S. was NOT, "The American Bald Eagle"... "The Colonial Phoenix Eagle"

Anonymous said...

I almost forgot... How far away in San Diego CA., did James E. Holmes live, from "The Heaven's Gate Incident that happened in the late 1990s, and did it have any influence on him?

Ann said...

Your personal experience of hearing a voice that called your name and woke you up in the early hours of July 20th is fascinating. I had such an experience once also, and the voice called my name and woke me up. It was a male voice, crystal clear and loud. The Universe calling?

Scott said...

Synchronicity? While reading your blog a song playing on the radio had the lyric:

"The joker ain't the only fool who'll do anything for you "

Queen Of Hearts by Juice Newton:

Midnight, and I'm a-waiting on the twelve-oh-five
Hoping it'll take me just a little farther down the line

Moonlight, you're just a heartache in disguise; Won't you
keep my heart from breaking if it's only for a very short time

Playing with the queen of hearts, knowing it ain't really smart
The joker ain't the only fool who'll do anything for you
Laying out another lie, thinking 'bout a life of crime
That's what I'll have to do to keep me away from you

Honey, you know it makes you mad
Why is everybody telling everybody what you have done

Baby, I know it makes you sad
But when they're handing out the heartaches you know you got to have you some... etc