Gunman Kills 12 in Colorado, Reviving Gun Debate
21/07/2012 4 comentarios
Anticipation built in the packed, darkened movie theater. Life and its cares began to recede. Then, just after midnight on Friday, the fantasy became nightmare, and a place of escape became a trap, when a man strode to the front in a multiplex near Denver and opened fire. At least 12 people were killed and 58 wounded, with witnesses describing a scene of claustrophobia, panic, blood. Minutes later, police arrested James Holmes, 24, in the theater’s parking lot. “It was just chaos. You started hearing screaming. You looked up and people were falling. It was like a dream,” said Jamie Rohrs, 25, who was there with his fiancée, cradling his 4-month-old son, Ethan, in his arms as the movie began. It was midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises,” latest Batman sequel, at the Century 16 multiplex in Aurora, about 10 miles from downtown Denver. Mr. Rohrs jumped between the seats for cover, still holding the baby. He stumbled and crawled trying to figure out what to do, clutching his son to his chest as he went. “Do I run out the door? Is he going to shoot the baby? What am I to do?” Rohrs said, his voice quavering. But he, his fiancée and the baby eventually made it out. And so once again, with a squeeze of a trigger, just 20 miles from Columbine High School, scene of 1999 student massacre, nation was plunged into another debate about guns and violence. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who has waged a national campaign for stricter gun laws, offered a political challenge. “Maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it,” Mr. Bloomberg said during his weekly radio program, “because this is obviously a problem across the country.” Luke O’Dell of the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a Colorado group on the other side of debate over gun control, took a nearly opposite view. “Potentially, if there had been a law-abiding citizen who had been able to carry in theater, it’s possible the death toll would have been less.” Some survivors thought at first they were witnessing a promotional stunt. The gunman, wearing what Aurora Police Department officials described as nearly head-to-toe “ballistic gear,” including a throat protector and leggings, plus a gas mask and a long black coat, came in through a parking lot exit door near screen of Theater 9. “He walked in so casually,” said a witness, Jordan Crofter, 19, a Batman fan who had gone with a group of friends and had a seat in the front row. The gunman, still perhaps regarded by some as a performer, then released two devices down the theater aisles emitting what the police said was smoke or some sort of irritant (…..)
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/shooting-at-colorado-theater-showing-batman-movie.html