In the aftermath of James Holmes’s mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, CO in July 2012, police at the University of Colorado’s Denver campus said they had not had contact with him, but reports emerged that his psychiatrist had warned them. New documents have confirmed that warning, according to USA Today:
A University of Colorado psychiatrist told campus police a month before the Aurora movie theater attack that James Holmes had homicidal thoughts and was a public danger, according to records unsealed Thursday.
Lynne Fenton, a psychiatrist at the Denver campus, told police that Holmes had also “threatened and harassed her via email/text messages” in June 2012. He is standing trial for the July 20 shooting rampage that killed 12 and injured 70 during a midnight premiere of the latest Batman movie….
Soon after the shooting, university police said they had not had any contact with Holmes, a graduate student doing neuroscience research. But a search warrant affidavit released Thursday revealed that an officer had told investigators that Fenton had contacted her to report “his danger to the public due to homicidal statements he had made.”
Gun control advocates have used the Aurora shooting to press their case, either arguing that legal gun ownership of “assault rifles” must be restricted, or that conceal carry laws failed to protect the public.
As more facts emerge about the Aurora shooting, however, it is clear that the gun control narrative does not fit what actually happened, and legal gun ownership had little to do with Holmes’s terrible crime.