Aurora Sentinel Reporter Brandon Johansson is reporting periodically from the James Holmes Preliminary Hearing in Centennial. Check back here for updates
5:06 p.m.: The rifle ammunition James Holmes used during the July 20 theater rampage had a steel core that made the bullets particularly dangerous, a police sergeant testified.
Unlike ammunition police use, the .223 ammunition Holmes loaded his AR-15 assault rifle with were designed not to break apart on impact.
Aurora police Sgt. Matthew Fyles said that means a single bullet likely injured multiple people.
“One bullet accounted for multiple holes, potential injuries,” he said.
Some of the bullets ripped through the theater wall and wounded three other people in adjacent theater.
In all, police say Holmes fired 65 shots from the .223 before a high-capacity drum magazine connected to the rifle before it jammed. Investigators found more than 200 rounds of ammunition for the rifle in the theater that had not been fired.
Holmes also fired six shots from a 12-gauge shotgun inside the theater. While he fired far fewer times with the shotgun, it accounted for a disproportionate amount of injuries. In all, at least 22 of the 58 people in the theater hit by gunfire were wounded by shotgun pellets. Among the 12 dead, three were killed by shotgun fire, the others from the rifle or Holmes’ .40 caliber pistol.
Another 12 people sustained injuries ranging from chemical irritation caused by the tear gas canister police say Holmes threw or from leg injuries as they fled the theater.
Prosecutors said at the end of Tuesday’s testimony that they would call Fyles back to the stand Wednesday, but he would be there last witness.
The defense has said in court filings that they may call witnesses as well.
3:45 p.m. A supervising police detective broke down on the stand this afternoon while describing to the court who was injured and how.
A police officer broke down on the stand yesterday while describing the massacre scene shortly after he arrived.
Arapahoe County District Court Judge William Sylvester called a recess Tuesday afternoon after Sgt. Matthew Fyles, a supervisor with the Aurora Police major crimes unit, lost his composure. Fyles had read off about 40 names of those wounded during the melee, including those who were killed. Styles was relating details about Ashley Moser-Sullivan when he could no longer continue. Moser-Sullivan lost her 6-year-old daughter, Veronica, in the shooting. Ashley Moser-Sullivan was pregnant at the time of massacre and miscarried shortly after. She was critically wounded and paralyzed from gun sh0t wounds.
Police said the investigation and response to the massacre was massive, and included these statistics:
• 444 police filed reports on the case, about two-thirds of the police force
• 56 crime-lab officials worked on the case
• 27 police officials from outside Aurora worked on the case
• an unknown number of federal and U.S. Postal Service officials worked on the case
• All told, more than 1,000 law enforcement officers have worked on the case.
• 129 police officers in 52 cars were on the scene of the shooting on July 20
••••••••••••••
2:45 p.m.: Prosecutors did not order blood tests for suspected shooter James Holmes when he got to the Aurora police station after the shootings, despite his bizarre behavior.
When Holmes was brought to the station, he was forced to strip from his clothes and his hands were “bagged” so they could later be tested for gunpowder residue, police testified today.
At one point, Holmes sat alone in the interview room and began to talk to the paper bags on his hands as if they were hand puppets, Aurora police Detective Craig Appel testified. After drinking water from a styrofoam coffee cup, Holmes began flipping the cup around the table. Later, Holmes removed some kind of staple from the underside of the interview table and tried to stick the staple into an electrical outlet.
When cross-examined about why there was no blood draw to determine whether Holmes had taken drugs or alcohol, Appel told the court he thought he would have needed a warrant, and that by the time he obtained one, the results from any kind of blood test would be inaccurate.
“I saw no indication that he was under the influence of anything,” Appel said.
In other testimony, police said that Holmes apparently fired a total of 76 shots during the massacre. Sixty-five of the shots were fired from the assault rifle he carried into the theater. Six shots were fired from a shotgun, and five shots were fired from a .40-caliber handgun.
Police said that about half of the shots were fired from near the door at the front of the theater near the screen, which Holmes sneaked into upon returning to the theater.
Police also said that he purchased his movie ticket online July 8, not July 7 as reported yesterday. He bought his ticket for Theater 8, but all those who arrived for the premier of the Batman movie were able to choose their theater. Holmes chose 9, police testified.
*******************
1:10 p.m.: Before he opened fire on a packed movie theater, James Holmes filled his Paris Street apartment with booby trapped explosives, hoping it would divert police resources from the theater, an FBI agent testified Tuesday.
Garrett Gumbinner, a bomb technician for the FBI, said he interviewed Holmes at the Aurora city jail a few hours after the shooting. Holmes told the FBI agent about an elaborate series of home-made bombs and other devices inside his apartment.
Holmes said his hope was that the devices would cause his apartment to either explode, or catch fire at about the time of the theater rampage, forcing police to send officers there.
Gumbinner, a 13-year FBI vet who has been a bomb tech for the past seven years, said the first device police encountered was a trip wire stretching five feet across the apartment’s door. The wire was connected to a thermos full of glycerin. The thermos was perched at an angle so when someone opened the door, it would pour the chemical into a nearby frying pan.
The frying pan was full of potassium permanganate, which, when combined with the glycerin, would erupt in flames and sparks, Gumbinner said.
Holmes’ hope was that the flames and sparks would touch his carpet, which he had saturated in gasoline and oil.
The flames from the carpet would then spark several fuses that Holmes connected to three jars filled with home-made Napalm. Holmes made the Napalm by mixing gasoline with Styrofoam. On Holmes’ stove, police found the metal dish and paintbrushes Holmes used to mix the substance, Gumbinner said.
Mixed in with the Napalm were several rounds of .223 rifle ammunition and .40-caliber ammunition. On top of the jars were containers of smokeless gunpowder.
Holmes also made thermite by filing aluminum rods and mixing the powder with iron oxide. Gumbinner said the thermite could have been particularly dangerous because those fires are difficult to extinguish.
“You can’t put it out with water, it burns that hot,” he said.
Prosecutors showed pictures of Holmes’ living room that showed a tangle of wire and fuses running from the bombs to his kitchen. The pictures also showed 10, 2-liter Sprite bottles full of gasoline scattered across the room. There were also several fireworks shells packed with gunpowder.
Inside his kitchen, Holmes set up initiation devices design to spark the fire. One of those devices could be controlled remotely.
Holmes set up an elaborate scheme to get someone else to use that remote. Outside his apartment, he put a boombox in a white garbage bag and stashed it near a Dumpster. On top of the bag, he placed a remote control toy car. Next to the car, he put a remote control that would set off the device in his kitchen.
In the boombox, Holmes put on a CD that would play 45 minutes of silence before playing loud music.
Gumbinner said Holmes hoped a passerby would hear the music, walk toward the boombox and see the toy car. Then, he hoped they’d try to use the remote to play with the car, setting off the devices in his apartment.
****************
12:10 p.m.: James Holmes made 16 different purchases leading up to the July 20 theater shootings, buying several weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition, explosives, chemicals and body armor.
During the second day of Holmes’ preliminary hearing Tuesday, an ATF agent detailed Holmes’ purchases, which started May 10 and ended July 14, less than a week before police say Holmes killed 12 and wounded 70 at the Century Aurora 16 theater.
ATF Agent Steven Beggs said federal investigators found 16 separate purchases that Holmes made from three Denver-area sporting goods stores and several online stores.
Among the purchases, Holmes bought the AR-15 assault rifle, tactical shotgun and two Glock .40-caliber pistols, Beggs said.
For the assault rifle, he bought 3,370 rounds of .223 ammunition. For the pistols he bought 2,600 rounds and for the shotgun, he purchased 325 shells.
Holmes also bought plastic rounds for the weapons that are typically used by shooters who want to practice changing clips rapidly. He bought practice targets, too.
Holmes’ lawyer, Tamara Brady, pointed out during cross examination that Holmes bought all of the weapons, ammunition, body armor and chemicals legally. Also, she noted, there is no system in place that would bar a “severely mentally ill” person from buying those weapons.
Prosecutors argued that Holmes’ purchases show he deliberated about the shooting well before he opened fire.
Deputy District Attorney Rich Orman also said Holmes’ online dating profiles also showed deliberation. On Match.com and AdultFriendFinder.com, police say Holmes posted a headline that said, “Will you visit me in prison?” He posted one of the headlines July 5.
“That is evidence of deliberation, he is planning on committing a crime that is going to put him in prison,” Orman said.
Testimony is scheduled to continue this afternoon with the Detective Craig Appel, Aurora police’s lead detective on the case.
**************
10:45 a.m. The second day of James Holmes’ preliminary hearing continued this morning with recordings of gut-wrenching 911 calls from inside the theater and details about Holmes’ booby-trapped apartment.
The first 911 call came in at 12:38 a.m. July 20, 18 minutes after the Batman movie started. The recording picked up 30 gunshots in just 27 seconds.
In the second call prosecutors played, a 13-year-old girl who was at the movie with her cousins Ashley Moser-Sullivan and Veronica Sullivan relayed the terror inside the theater. Throughout the four-minute call, which came in after the shooting stopped, the dispatcher tried to talk the girl through administering CPR for her wounded cousin. Moser-Sullivan was paralyzed in the attack and 6-year-old Veronica killed.
An FBI bomb technician also testified that Holmes told police he elaborately booby-trapped his apartment on Paris Street to catch fire or blow up to divert police and firefighters from the theater. The bombs were set to go off around the beginning of the movie, but apparently failed. Holmes wired his front door with fishing line designed to trip a chemical bomb that would set off sparks and flame, setting fire to his carpet, which was soaked in gas and oil. He also set up a remote control car outside the apartment as part of a complicated plan that would have a passerby react to loud music and set off the bombs.
*******
8:15 AM: James Holmes’ preliminary hearing is scheduled to resume today at 9:30 a.m. and will likely start with more testimony about the 70 wounded victims.
Monday’s seven-hour session ended with Aurora police Detective Todd Fredericksen testifying about some of the wounded he interviewed after the July 20 shooting.
Fredericksen, who works in the department’s major crime/homicide unit, spoke to several witnesses at area hospitals and their doctors in the days and weeks after the rampage. He detailed the victims’ injuries and some of what they saw in the theater that night.
Prosecutors didn’t finish questioning Fredericksen before the end of Monday’s session, so he is likely to resume testimony Tuesday morning.
By the end of Monday’s testimony, prosecutors had only discussed about a dozen individual victims, meaning they have more than 50 more to discuss before the hearing is scheduled to end Friday.
Also Monday, some of the first officers on the scene that night discussed the carnage inside the theater. Medical examiners from the Arapahoe County coroner’s office also discussed the injuries to the 12 dead.
Tuesday’s hearing is starting a half hour later than normal because Chief District Judge William Sylvester, who is presiding over the case, has to swear-in several newly elected county officials Tuesday morning.
The Arapahoe County Justice Center where the hearing is being held was far less crowded Tuesday morning than it was Monday. The line to get through courthouse security stretched almost to the parking lot Monday, Tuesday the line was just a few people long.
Holmes faces 166 charges, including 12 counts of first-degree murder, for the shooting at the Century Aurora 16 theater that left 12 dead and 70 wounded. He was arrested a few minutes after the shootings and has been in jail since. His lawyers have said the former neuroscience student is mentally ill.