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Batman Shooting: Suspect's Flat Booby-Trapped

Updated: 11:40pm UK, Friday 20 July 2012

Officers are at the "booby-trapped" home of the suspected Batman killer - as a police chief said the gunman had painted his hair red and called himself the comic book villain The Joker.

Twelve people were killed and 59 others wounded after the attacker opened fire at a cinema in the Denver suburb of Aurora as movie-goers attended the first screening of new film The Dark Knight Rises.

Aurora police chief Dan Oates confirmed 24-year-old suspect James Holmes was arrested shortly after the rampage near a car at the back of the cinema complex in Colorado.

He offered no resistance when he was detained, officers said. The suspect is scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

Holmes' apartment, about four miles from the cinema, contains incendiary and chemical devices and apparent trip wires, Mr Oates said, adding the operation could take hours or days.

Mr Oates said pictures from inside the third-floor flat were fairly disturbing and the devices seemed sophisticated.

FBI agents and police, using a fire engine ladder, put a camera at the end of 12ft pole in the flat where they discovered the property was booby-trapped.

Authorities have evacuated five buildings as they worked out how to disarm flammable and explosive material.

Mr Oates also confirmed a total of 71 people were shot. Ten lost their lives at the scene and two in hospital.

A gunman wearing a gas mask and body armour set off two devices - possibly gas canisters -and then opened fire with a rifle, shotgun and pistol at a midnight screening at the Century Aurora 16 Movie Theatre in a shopping centre.

Mr Oates said: "The devices ignited and then released some sort of irritant or smoke."

He added the gunman was dressed all in black, including a bullet proof vest.

New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly said the perpetrator had painted his hair red and called himself The Joker, Batman's nemesis.

But Mr Oates reiterated he was wearing black clothing and did not comment on the colour of the suspect's hair.

Authorities have not released a motive. The FBI said there was no indication the shooting was linked to any terrorist groups.

Some reports claimed the attack happened after the trailers had just finished, while others said it took place 20-30 minutes into the start of the movie premiere.

One of the dead has been named as Jessica Redfield, who had survived an earlier shooting.

Some moviegoers said they thought the attack was part of the film. They said they saw a silhouette of a person in the smoke at the front of the cinema, pointing a gun at the crowd.

"There were bullet (casings) just falling on my head. They were burning my forehead," Jennifer Seeger said.

She added the gunman, dressed like a Swat team member, fired steadily except when he stopped to reload.

"Every few seconds it was just boom, boom, boom," Ms Seeger said. "He would reload and shoot and anyone who would try to leave would just get killed."

She said she was in the second row when the gunman pointed a gun at her face. At first, "I was just a deer in headlights. I didn't know what to do," she said. Then she ducked to the ground as the gunman shot people seated behind her.

Holmes' family says their hearts go out to those involved. He was a student at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver but dropped out last month, according to a spokeswoman.

A three-month-old baby and a six-year-old child were reportedly among those injured in the atrocity. At least three US military members were also wounded and another US Navy sailor remained "unaccounted for", said the Pentagon.

President Barack Obama called the killings "senseless, evil and beyond reason". It was the worst mass shooting in the US since an army psychiatrist killed 13 soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

The Queen has sent her "heartfelt sympathy" to Mr Obama and the US people, saying: "My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed and I wish the many who were injured a swift and full recovery."

Aurora is only a few miles from the Columbine High School, where two students opened fire and killed 12 classmates and a teacher in 1999.

According to witnesses, the gunman in Aurora also set off a smoke or tear gas bomb.

Paul Otermat was in the cinema with his girlfriend when the shooting started. He said he walked calmly into the cinema, threw a gas canister and began firing without saying anything.

He told Sky News: "A man walked through an emergency exit. I thought it was some sort of publicity stunt for a second there and then he threw tear gas into the crowd.

"He started firing shots into the crowd. We ducked down me and my girlfriend and dragged out of the theatre to a point where we were out of the view of the shooter. We ran through the lobby and we heard more shots and ran into the parking lot and got into our car and drove off."

Some of those injured were in an adjacent cinema and the bullets are believed to have travelled through an intervening wall.

James Cameron was in that next-door cinema when the shooting took place. His friend suffered an asthma attack after the gas canister went off and he saw injured people as they got out of the theatre.

He told Fox News: "It has been a nightmare night. A baby girl was struck in her back. That is something that is going to stick with me for the rest of my life.

"As far as injured people, they were all over the place. It was like something from a sci-fi movie."

President Obama told a crowd in Florida: "Such violence, such evil, is senseless. But while we will never know fully what causes somebody to take the live of another, we do know what makes life worth living. The people we lost in Aurora loved and they were loved."

Surrounding car parks were cordoned off as sniffer dogs were brought in to search a Hyundai vehicle for a suspected explosive device. Helicopter footage showed a bomb disposal robot approaching the white car, which had Tennessee licence plates.

Footage of the suspect gunman's apartment showed an officer using a listening probe at the window to determine whether there were explosives inside and officers using a fire truck ladder to gain access into the building.

Following the tragedy, the Paris premiere of The Dark Knight Rises was cancelled and police in New York have increased security in cinemas where the film is being shown. And Odeon cinemas in the UK have confirmed they will be searching bags "as a precaution".

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