The Initial Police Investigation: Cementing the Lone-Gunman Narrative
Shortly after 11 a.m. on July 20th, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates spoke during the main press conference to the media. Despite reports of possible accomplices and incriminating evidence left behind at the scene just hours earlier, it’s surprising how confident he is in asserting that Holmes acted alone.
Perhaps the show of assurance was done to best represent the valiant efforts of first responders without injecting more drama into an already dramatic situation. Imagine the local paranoia emanating from headlines like, “Second Aurora gunman still on the loose” and “Police looking for second suspect at large”. Short of any related leads, the police’s chances of finding these suspects weren’t great, considering the general descriptions they had to go on and possibly limited resources in pursuing them.
9:37
Oates: We are not looking for any other suspects. We are confident that he acted alone. However, we will do a thorough investigation to be absolutely sure that that is the case. But at this time, we are confident that he acted alone.
20:33
Reporter 1: We had a witness [presumably Corbin Dates] tell us that he saw a suspicious person in the front aisle that was lingering near the exit where the shooter came in. And I’m wondering if you’ve looked into that, because you said you believe he acted alone. So is that something you think played a part in allowing him to get in?
Oates [collecting his thoughts]: We have information as to what occurred in the theater based on the roughly 200 interviews that we have made. And we have ballistic evidence inside that suggests how the shooting went down. But we have so much investigation to do, and that’s the kind of evidence for a prosecution—not for a discussion at this time.
Reporter 2: Are there cameras in those theaters?
Reporter 3: That door—you couldn’t access that door from the outside—it has to be opened from the inside.
Oates [choosing his next words]: We’re not prepared to discuss any theories about how that he got in there with the weapons, but we will tell you that his car was parked right outside the back door.
Reporter 2: Are there cameras in those theaters?
Two days after the shooting, Oates admitted to Bob Schieffer on CBS’ Face the Nation that he was hardly up-to-date with evidence in the case, but nevertheless showed an early commitment to the lone-gunman story:
0:52
Schieffer: As far as you know at this time, this involves only one person?
Oates: All the evidence we have—every single indicator—is that this is all Mr. Holmes’ activity, and he that wasn’t particularly aided by anyone else.
1:30
Oates: We’re building a case to show that this was a deliberative process by a very intelligent man who wanted to do this. So it will take quite a bit of time. There are so many loose ends, and we’ve been so busy dealing with the families and the aftermath of this, and the dangers of the apartment, that I haven’t even been briefed by my investigators on probably 90% of what they know. That kind of work will take place in the next couple of days, I’ll be more up to speed.
Oates’ admission that he had been briefed on roughly 10% of the case could explain why he believed there were no accomplices. But conversely, it makes you wonder how he could be so confident that Holmes acted alone. Even so, Oates knew that police had already interviewed about 200 witnesses, and witness testimony alone should have been enough to shake his confidence that Holmes was the only suspect.
But Oates’ belief was unwavering.
In a same-day interview with Fox News’ Jon Scott, Oates did indicate some open-mindedness when asked about a possible second suspect, and also addressed a person of interest in the investigation:
Scott: There was word overnight—some confusion overnight—that there might be a second person involved, a second suspect. Can you clear that up for us?
Oates [collecting his thoughts]: Sure, and I’d like to correct something. Rather than insist that he worked and acted alone, we have no information that he acted with anyone else at this time.
If Holmes Was on Something, We’ll Never Know
Is there anything else that Aurora police didn’t seem to follow through on immediately after the shooting?
Look no further than their decision not to drug-test their prime suspect, who looked and behaved like someone on drugs upon his arrest [emphasis added]:
Now there was a report overnight about a person who was an acquaintance of Mr. Holmes. We’ve since contacted that person. We’re trying to contact every person who was an acquaintance of Mr. Holmes to find out as much about Holmes as we can… But we did speak to that person last night, and it’s part of a massive investigation.
So far, the closest thing to an official second suspect was the person of interest, but his name was soon cleared.
Question: Just hours after a mass shooting, what kind of “massive investigation” doesn’t take all of the evidence into account—especially one in which multiple threads suggest the presence of at least one accomplice? And once Oates did get up to speed on all the evidence, how could the narrative have remained unchanged?
Put another way—two extra gas masks, a tear-gas canister in Theater 8, and at least three different suspect descriptions made Oates feel confident that only one person was involved, and it was Holmes?
And again, how would the public have reacted if the police stated that at least one accomplice was still unaccounted for? Something that can’t be ignored.
Newser Holmes “was very relaxed” when police found him outside the Century 16 theater that night, his hands on top of his car beside a handgun, said Officer Jason Oviatt: “It was like there weren’t normal emotional responses.”
The Denver Post Holmes was “just standing there,” Oviatt testified. “Not doing anything. Not in any hurry. Not excited.” Oviatt’s reports from that day note Holmes “simply stared off into the distance” and “seemed to be out of it and disoriented.”
On the stand, Oviatt said Holmes…showed no normal emotional responses but understood directions and cooperated. Oviatt testified he saw no signs of drug use, despite noting in reports that Holmes’ pupils were “huge.”
USA Today [Officer Aaron] Blue said once they got Holmes into the back of a police car, he became fidgety, was sweating profusely and reeked of body odor.
The Denver Channel Sources told CALL7 Investigator John Ferrugia that when Holmes…was brought in…he sat wide-eyed, with his eyebrows twitching as detectives watched him… Sources also said detectives put bags over his hands to preserve any gunshot residue.
Sources told CALL7 that Holmes began playing with the bags pretending they were two puppets.
Huffington Post It was just hours after a deadly Colorado theater shooting, and James Holmes was not acting like a man accused of methodically planning the attack and booby trapping his apartment… As police detective Craig Appel interviewed the suspect they’d picked up outside the theater…the former neuroscience graduate student tried to jam a staple into an electrical outlet. He played with a cup on the table. Appel noted that his eyes were dilated….
CNN Asked by a defense attorney whether he had ordered a blood test for Holmes, Appel said he had not. “There were no indications that he was under the influence of anything,” he said.[/dropshadowbox]
Holmes told police that he took 100mg of Vicodin about two-and-a-half hours before the shooting. This is despite the fact that Vicodin is known to constrict pupils rather than dilate them, and the effects from that low of a dose are unlikely to sustain themselves three days later, when Holmes appeared completely out of it at his first court hearing.
So was Holmes on something else? Thanks to the inaction of investigators, we’ll never know for sure, even if the names of his four prescriptions found at his apartment are ever released.
Can we chalk up Holmes’ strange behavior to simply being mentally ill? It’s not unreasonable, considering that his earlier self-diagnosis of dysphoric mania is consistent with symptoms he exhibited in the courtroom.
But the larger point here is that police didn’t attempt to resolve apparent contradictory observations in their prime suspect. Even though they didn’t think he was under the influence of common drugs or alcohol, it would have only been diligent—and perhaps compliant with official forensic protocol—to prove their assessment with more objective evidence.
Well, if he wasn’t drugging himself, he didn’t have to wait long. It looks like the feds drugged him up pretty good for his preliminary trial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbuIiwv3lX4
The Accomplice Theory: Final Questions
- Who was running with James Holmes near his apartment just hours before the shooting?
- Are there any other witnesses who saw Holmes or the man with the goatee at the emergency exit door of Theater 9? And why did Corbin Dates change his story about who he saw?
- How do police account for the two gas masks they recovered that don’t belong to Holmes?
- Where did Holmes get the bulletproof vest that he wore during the shooting?
- Who set off the gas canister in Theater 8, and why have police not addressed it?
- Who threw the alleged second gas canister in Theater 9?
- What became of at least two possible suspects reported on the police scanner?
- Why did Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates insist so early on that Holmes acted alone, despite evidence suggesting otherwise?
- Why didn’t Aurora police drug-test their prime suspect, who behaved strangely from the time of his arrest to his first court hearing three days later?
- Why has most of the mass media not asked these same questions?
A Truth We May Never Know
Given the evidence supporting the presence of at least one accomplice in the Aurora shooting, it was a little surprising that Holmes’ defense team did not call any witnesses to the stand at the preliminary hearing in January—witnesses who could blow up the entire lone-gunman story.
This indicates two things that could be true. One, any evidence of an accomplice doesn’t change the fact that Holmes participated in the attack. And two, the FBI and/or Aurora police may not want the defense to reveal this kind of information. We can only speculate why.
That’s quite a shame, because even if Holmes is guilty in all scenarios, failure to address all of the evidence in court is a failure to do justice, which is truly criminal.
Wherever the truth lies, the word “accomplice” will likely not be uttered in the courtroom.
But the notion did surface at the preliminary hearing. Officer Justin Grizzle testified that after Holmes was arrested, he asked if anyone had helped him with the attack. Holmes responded nonverbally with an enigmatic half-answer that can be met with an eerie sense of conspiratorial wonder: “He just looked at me and smiled. It was a smirk.”
Why Would the Media Completely Distort James’ Mother’s Comment?
Lies were told about James mother, Arlene Holmes’, statement, when she was awoken by an ABC News correspondent. The news channel maliciously twisted her words saying she responded “Yes, you have have the right person” when told the news about her son. Ms. Holmes responded succinctly and intelligently, unlike ABC News:
I was awakened by a call from a reporter from ABC Media on July 20 about 5:45 a.m. I did not know anything about a shooting in Aurora at that time. He asked if I was Arlene Holmes and if my son was James Holmes who lives in Aurora, Colorado. I answered ‘Yes, you have the right person.’ I was referring to myself. I asked him to tell me why he was calling and he told me about a shooting in Aurora. He asked for a comment. I told him I could not comment because I did not know if the person he was talking about was my son and I would need to find out.”
Source: Holmes Family Stands by Son: Attorney | NBC 7 San Diego
The Trial
A jury rejected Holmes’ insanity defense and convicted (July 16, 2015) him of 24 counts of murder, 140 counts of attempted murder and a single explosives charge. But the jury could not agree on the death penalty; there was a lone holdout.
Holmes received the only alternative on the 24 murder counts — life sentences without parole, to be served consecutively. That’s 12 life sentences plus 3,318 additional years. The additional years, which cover the attempted murder and explosives convictions, will be served consecutively to the murder sentences. The judge merged the two convictions for each victim into a single count.
The trial featured graphic descriptions of the gruesome crime scene and heartbreaking stories of the lives taken and shattered by Holmes’ bullets.
The testimony also focused on Holmes’ mental illness. A notebook containing his rambling thoughts and detailed plans for the massacre, as well as hours of videotaped interviews with a court-appointed psychiatrist, dominated that part of the testimony.
Holmes revealed that he had been obsessed with killing people since his early teens. He said he studied neuroscience in part to fix his own “broken brain.” He also said he contemplated suicide before devising a “life capital” plan that awarded him points for each life he took.
The defense portrayed Holmes as a victim of mental illness and brought forward a parade of witnesses who knew him as a sweet, academically gifted child. But prosecutors disdainfully portrayed him as a self-absorbed loser who lashed out violently after setbacks in his love life and his studies.
In the end, the judge found him to be a quitter who gave up on life and vowed to take others with him.
Crisis Actors and Fakery Used?
Near the beginning of this article, we discussed an accusation from a woman who was apparently threatened to participate in the shooting event as an actor, and perhaps to take a non-lethal bullet as part of a scam to further fool the masses.
Steve Barton (from Newtown, CT) just happened to be there:
Chloe Anderson, another wanna-be actor connected to a false flag event as is always the case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7dQdxB2X74
Unnamed Crisis Actor (Aurora, Boston Marathon Bombing, Sandy Hook, & Paris):
Marcus Weaver:
Holmes psychiatric history just prior to the Massacre
Holmes’ defense attorneys stated in a motion that he was a psychiatric patient of the medical director of Anschutz’s Student Mental Health Services prior to the Aurora shooting. The prosecutor disagreed with that claim. Four days after the release of the defense attorney’s motion, the judge required this information to be blacked out. CBS News later reported that Holmes met with at least three mental health professionals at the University of Colorado prior to the massacre. Holmes had a B.S. from Univ. of California Riverside in Denver, CO and was studying for his Phd. Did he become involved in some CIA MKUltra program as an unsuspecting student willing to earn a little extra money? (Wikipedia)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52LTReMErfs
