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Aurora shooting...Holmes had planned to escape.

pragmatic

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The “Joker” had a sick escape plan.

“Dark Knight’’ madman James Holmes thought he could make a clean getaway after slaughtering 12 moviegoers at a midnight showing of the new Batman film in Aurora, Colo., but got tripped up by his faulty devices and eagle-eyed police officers.

The killer, 24, had set a timer to turn on his apartment’s stereo at full volume before he left on his deadly mission, hoping neighbors would complain to cops.

Then, when police got to his home, they’d be killed by his booby traps, diverting attention from the theater, where he could go on killing — and still have time to escape dressed as an Aurora police SWAT-team member, law-enforcement sources told The Post yesterday.

“The guy was a mad scientist,” a source said. “There was a magnetic switch [in his apartment so that] when the door opens up, it would trip a chemical container into another chemical container that would ignite the cans of gasoline and light up the whole place and kill the cops.”
But Holmes’ diabolical plot failed because of a series of miscalculations.
First, cops didn’t respond to the noise in the apartment — where trip wires crisscrossed the pad and canisters of explosive liquids and scores of mortars shaped like bullets were strewn about.

Had the trap worked, fireball alone would have blown up and consumed the entire third floor of the apartment building,” a source told the LA Times.
Holmes told cops about the bombs after his arrest, bolstering the theory that he had laid his trap so he could wreak more havoc at the theater before making a getaway.


Pyscho Colorado 'gunman' planned getaway by using booby traps, SWAT gear - NYPOST.com
 
What the hell. This kid was simply aiming to kill as many people as possible in as many ways as possible. The entire third floor of the building would have likely been killed too.
 
This is just like the shooter of the Arizona congresswoman.

Unfortunately, what can you do about these people until they do something?
 
What the hell. This kid was simply aiming to kill as many people as possible in as many ways as possible. The entire third floor of the building would have likely been killed too.

That's not exactly how the story reads. The apartment building was a calculated divererson which was supposed to explode before he started the killing at the theater. It genuinely appears that this individual planned (and thought he was going to) get away....
 
I guess we should be fortunate that some of his plans failed, that the gun jammed, that cops were already near the theater. Through pure luck this awful tragedy was a lot less damaging than it could have been.
 
That's not exactly how the story reads. The apartment building was a calculated divererson which was supposed to explode before he started the killing at the theater. It genuinely appears that this individual planned (and thought he was going to) get away....

Well I mean I know the apartment was a divereson, but we are talking about putting an entire third floor on fire. It simply could have been his apartment and maybe his neighbors, but the entire floor?
 
I guess we should be fortunate that some of his plans failed, that the gun jammed, that cops were already near the theater. Through pure luck this awful tragedy was a lot less damaging than it could have been.

My understanding is that this is the drum style magazine attached to his primary weapon (AR-15?). Notorious for jamming. Which isn't hard to imagine just looking at it....


Oct23_08.jpg
 
Well I mean I know the apartment was a divereson, but we are talking about putting an entire third floor on fire. It simply could have been his apartment and maybe his neighbors, but the entire floor?

Pretty safe conclusion that he's a nutter. But it is sounding more and more like he was literally trying to create a Batman movie caliber masacre/disaster. And then disappear into the night like a "Jokeresque" Batman arch-villian.

Getting a little creepy. Creepier yet because it doesn't look he was all that far away from pulling it off. Dunno. Guess we can expect more details from the investigation and the trial....
 
Pretty safe conclusion that he's a nutter. But it is sounding more and more like he was literally trying to create a Batman movie caliber masacre/disaster. And then disappear into the night like a "Jokeresque" Batman arch-villian.

Getting a little creepy. Creepier yet because it doesn't look he was all that far away from pulling it off. Dunno. Guess we can expect more details from the investigation and the trial....

Yeah, it is a shame that both Batman movies were with tragic deaths.
 
If only he applied his intellect towards helping human life, instead of taking it..
 
All I got to say is is that he was an evil genius.
 
Looked like he had pinkish reddish hair on the tube today, first thing I thought was that he probably dyed his hair as part of some escape plan.

It didn't look much like the hair in those normal looking pictures that had been shown.

james-holmes-440.jpg

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20613979,00.html
 
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Pretty safe conclusion that he's a nutter. But it is sounding more and more like he was literally trying to create a Batman movie caliber masacre/disaster. And then disappear into the night like a "Jokeresque" Batman arch-villian.

Getting a little creepy. Creepier yet because it doesn't look he was all that far away from pulling it off. Dunno. Guess we can expect more details from the investigation and the trial....

I didn't really watch Batman, but I don't recall the Joker killing mass people and being heavily armed. What was the Jokers main goal anyway?

Also, why didn't he just call the cops on himself for loud music? It seems like that would have worked better. Not that I want to give him tips on being a maniac, but he could have done a better job at his diabolical plot... Diabolical plots to fail like that in the movies.
 
If this is true, I'm very curious what his long term plan was. Clearly the cops would have made the connection between the apartment bombing and the mass killing so they would be looking for him. Where did he plan to go? What did he plan to do? Did he have fake ID's, sources of money, a safe house?

Looks like a small amount of happenstance, like in Columbine, helped to reduce the death toll. Erich Harris and Dylan Klebold had made pipebombs to go off at exits in the school campus so that everyone would come running out of the main entrance, where they were waiting to fire on the concentrated students. The bombs were duds, which forced them to go classroom to classroom.

I'm also curious what his reasoning was for revealing the booby traps. If he wanted to lash out at the world, why not let them blunder in to the apartment and take out more people? The only thing I can assume is that since the cops had him in custody, he wanted to give himself as much a chance as possible with the cops...I'm guessing that he thought his life in prison would be much harder as a cop killer.

Also, once the jig was up and he knew he was going to be captured, why didn't he commit suicide? In most cases of mass shootings, this is how the whole scenario ends. Perhaps his dazed look in the courtroom for his hearing yesterday reveals that he wished he did. He's facing decades of incarceration with a needle possibly at the end of it, with very low quality of life. I'm sure the high of feeling like God in the devil's body was the greatest buzz of his life. The buzz is over now. His world has gone flat and grey, and it will never get better.
 
Looked like he had pinkish reddish hair on the tube today, first thing I thought was that he probably dyed his hair as part of some escape plan.

It didn't look much like the hair in those normal looking pictures that had been shown.

james-holmes-440.jpg

Aurora Shooting Suspect James Holmes Appears in Court; Mugshot Released : People.com

I saw him on TV and I thought he had Charles Manson eyes... they kept bugging out. He looks like he is off balance.

I am wondering why somebody would want to be the Joker, and people said he seemed fine months ago. What happened to him?
 
What was the Jokers main goal anyway?

"...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with.

Some men just want to watch the world burn." --- Alfred, The Dark Knight

"This world rejects me
this world threw me away
this world never gave me a chance
this world's gonna have to pay

Well I don't believe in your institutions
I did what you wanted me to
Like the cancer in the system
I've got a little surprise for you

Something inside of me, has opened up it's eyes
Why did you put it there? Did you not realize?
This thing inside of me, it screams the loudest sound
Sometimes I think I could...

I'm gonna burn this whole world down" -- Nine Inch Nails, "Burn"
 
If this is true, I'm very curious what his long term plan was. Clearly the cops would have made the connection between the apartment bombing and the mass killing so they would be looking for him. Where did he plan to go? What did he plan to do? Did he have fake ID's, sources of money, a safe house?

Looks like a small amount of happenstance, like in Columbine, helped to reduce the death toll. Erich Harris and Dylan Klebold had made pipebombs to go off at exits in the school campus so that everyone would come running out of the main entrance, where they were waiting to fire on the concentrated students. The bombs were duds, which forced them to go classroom to classroom.

I'm also curious what his reasoning was for revealing the booby traps. If he wanted to lash out at the world, why not let them blunder in to the apartment and take out more people? The only thing I can assume is that since the cops had him in custody, he wanted to give himself as much a chance as possible with the cops...I'm guessing that he thought his life in prison would be much harder as a cop killer.

Also, once the jig was up and he knew he was going to be captured, why didn't he commit suicide? In most cases of mass shootings, this is how the whole scenario ends. Perhaps his dazed look in the courtroom for his hearing yesterday reveals that he wished he did. He's facing decades of incarceration with a needle possibly at the end of it, with very low quality of life. I'm sure the high of feeling like God in the devil's body was the greatest buzz of his life. The buzz is over now. His world has gone flat and grey, and it will never get better.

I have wondered the same things too.

I heard he took a lot of powerful painkillers before the shooting, and the experts said it was probably because he was expecting to get shot and killed. He was wearing a lot of bullet proof gear, and it couldn't be penetrated by the guns cop's carry. They said he could have had a big battle with the officers as well.

Who knows... maybe he got scared... maybe he realized he didn't want to die...

I wonder how he got to this point though.
 
"...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with.

Some men just want to watch the world burn." --- Alfred, The Dark Knight

"This world rejects me
this world threw me away
this world never gave me a chance
this world's gonna have to pay

Well I don't believe in your institutions
I did what you wanted me to
Like the cancer in the system
I've got a little surprise for you

Something inside of me, has opened up it's eyes
Why did you put it there? Did you not realize?
This thing inside of me, it screams the loudest sound
Sometimes I think I could...

I'm gonna burn this whole world down" -- Nine Inch Nails, "Burn"

So the Joker is just angry about something and taking it out on the world.

What happened to James Holmes that made him so mad? That is, if he is angry and not just delusional or something.
 
I understand that the V Tech shooter was bullied most of his life and had anger.

I still don't know why the kids at Columbine did what they did... never really read much into it

James Holmes... as far as I know, he was not a victim of bullies his entire life. But one expert on TV said he wouldn't be surprised if he was abused or sexually abused, because of his response to the police. Police are an authority figure, and he did not resist them. Said he is probably uncomfortable with resisting authority figures because of some kind of abuse. That could explain anger too. .. but it's all just speculation of course.
 
It's not as simple as just anger. I think that people that are in highly stressful situations for long times suffer from permanent brain damage as a result, that may manifest itself slowly over time, or a switch might get flipped all at once.

I think there is something in Holmes' past that might explain all this. In the case of Charles Whitman, an overbearing father who demanded perfection, and Whitman's inability to satisfy his fathers standards, are imo what caused him to snap. Everything about what he said and did leading up to his shootings at the University of Texas at Austin suggests the same. Workplace shootings too, hating the job but needing to keep it, putting up with crap and worrying about getting fired can make a person severly stressed. Then get fired...it can set some people off.
 
Bath salts?

Much as it pains me, sounds like a drug precipitated meltdown.

Stimulants.

Meth, coke, or the synthetic khat that was (is?) In bath salts.

I always wanted to try khat, traditionally used socially and openly. A mild stimulant/euphoric. So I checked out bath salts online. What was available ranged from poor analogues of the real thing all the way to an overwhelming meth like high. (I passed, sounded like just another no fun legal high, ill.just have to wait until I meet some Somalis:mrgreen:)

Takes a while for these drugs to bring this kind of stuff out of the average person.

But they can shove the fragile or overstressed RIGHT over the edge.
 
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They should drug test him, definitely... but I am sure they already did. He doesn't seem to have drug ties to anybody though. He was mostly a loner.
 
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was stone cold sober. People are going to look for something that made him “snap” and maybe there is something. But some people are also just born sociopaths. And an intelligent sociopath who has decided to kill is pretty damn hard to stop until people have actually died. People like him feel special and feel that the world should know how great they are. My money is on this guy being someone who desired to be infamous.
 
If he really is "a genius" like the media says, and if he really wants to be the joker... then he's gotta escape from jail. Otherwise, he's just another dumb**** that will be forgot about in a few months.
 
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