Continuing on with my recreation of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado on July 20, 2012 we will now soon see that a second possible shooter has been identified. This additional potential shooter would not be acknowledged by officials in the hours, days or weeks following the event. One might ask why?
July 20, 2012 12:47 am
At 12:47 am an officer reports on air, “210, I’ve got one immobile on the east side I can’t get to rescue… shot twice in the back.” Once again, the east side is the back of the theater.
Another officer reports, “201 Adam…I need one ambulance at Sable and Centerpoint…I have a victim out here with the road crew.”
Again, Sable side is also a reference to the backside of the theater. The “road crew” referred to here would be a late night construction crew working on the road behind the theater that evening. This same road crew would later be eyewitness to the one of the most bizarre and shocking of events of the evening when they will see two suspects fleeing the back of the theater long after the supposed lone gunman is detained. This too will be captured on dispatch audio channels and we will cover it more later.
As noted by the discussion thus far, it is now several minutes past when the original official story says James Holmes was apprehended. The officers on scene are reporting they have a suspect in a white Kia behind the theater and early reports indicate the suspect may have been shot. As we know, James Holmes did not appear to be shot when he was in court days later so we have serious questions about who is sitting in the white car. We also know from official police testimony James Holmes was allegedly found just standing outside of his car and ordered to the ground. None of those details are corroborated by the police and fire audio that evening.
One officer is heard on air at 12:47 am saying, “Hold the air, making entry into nine.”
Another officer is calling out “we need rescue inside the auditorium…multiple victims.”
Unit 321 would report on air that he is on the southeast corner, “on the exit”. Another officer chimes in that “we need more cars on the east side with me please.”
Now, I am not faulting police or fire for assuming there may be more than one shooter at this time as the scene is still very fluid, but it should be noted that clearly the scene is still active.
At this point police and fire will start working more closely together as ambulances and fire trucks will begin staging on the west side parking lot at Dillards (also referred to as the “Dillard’s lot”). Police are calling for as many ambulances as possible and asking for litters to be brought to the front of the theater to carry people out.
It should be noted again that the “official” story is that James Holmes was arrested wearing his full tactical gear, including his gas mask, and according to early reports, he was seen milling around with the police behind the theater until he was challenged by an observant officer who noted James’ gas mask was non-regulation. Other than the gas mask, he was said to look exactly like police. The police audio however clearly shows an officer asking if the suspect is in the car. There is a pause as if the person responding is either trying to avoid answering the question or there is confusion of some kind. The officer asks again if the suspect is in the car and the response is, “Yes!”
This is an important time marker as this establishes now a time gap between when we know the shooting started (12:39 am) and when police claim to have seen James Holmes and have him “detained”. According to one official report the exact time between the first 911 call and this transmission is 4 minutes and 48 seconds. The actual time observed by my full unedited audio is over 7 minutes.. Remember, the early “official” sources claim James Holmes was apprehended within a minute to a minute and half after the shooting started. Regardless, the best is still yet to come.
July 20, 2012, 12:48 am
At 12:48 am unit 302 reports, “I’m taking one male to the hospital in my car.”
Seconds later an excited officer yells out over the air, “Sixteen, I’ve got seven down in theater nine! Seven down!”
Another officer comes on and asks, “Get me some officers in nine so we can get the movable victims out.”
July 20, 2012, 12:49 am
It is 12:49 am local time and the Aurora Fire Department scanner would crackle to life with the following, “Battalion One, Tower Eight’s on scene with APD [Aurora Police Department], we’re down at the Expo and Sable, he’s got a victim in the car…uh…we’re going to go ahead and take that right now.”
An officer then asks on air to start police cars coming from the Denver police department to help out on scene.
Around this time, Robert Kelly arrived at the theater and soon found his son Josh standing outside covered in blood. Josh’s girlfriend was not with him. Earlier, from inside the theater, Josh had called his father to say he’d lost sight of his girlfriend in the chaos that ensued. She would later be found among the ten dead still inside theater nine. Her body would not be removed for many, many hours. Josh would go home that morning and need to be sedated under a nurse’s supervision and care.
Patrons are pouring out of the theater into the parking lot including Jordan Murphy and his friends who immediately get into their car and flee the scene. Police do not stop them nor perhaps a dozen other cars that are leaving the scene at the same time. This will be increasingly suspicious behavior as time moves on so remember this detail – cars are fleeing the scene of the crime and are not being stopped by police. For another example, William Washington and his friends have just escaped theater eight and are now out in the parking lot getting into their car where they simply drive away from the scene without being stopped.
On their way out of the theater Erin Post and Julie Nguyen pass a woman with a gunshot wound in her leg trying to get out of the theater. This woman may be the same woman reported on by a female officer broadcasting on police dispatch around this time. That call simply reported, “fifteen six, we’ve got another person outside shot in the leg, a female, I’ve got people running out of the theater that are shot in room nine.”
Another male officer reports that he has a victim on the north side of the parking lot.
Quintin Caldwell along with others exits theater eight at the top of the theater near the project booth. As he rounds a corner he runs into a male and female officer with shotguns raised directly at them. The officers are yelling at everyone to keep their hands up. Quintin Caldwell hears the male officer asking permission to let people go while the female officer just starts yelling at people, “Just go, get out of here!”
Sharon Segura exits theater eight, passing the armed police officers, and rushes out the exit into the triage area where victims are starting to be staged. She sees a lot of blood and someone with a horrible leg wound. Being trained in first aid herself, Sharon attempts to start helping people outside the theater. Then something strange happens.
As she’s helping victims as best she can, Sharon sees a man who she believes is a cop. He’s been shot in the chest and appears to be terrified. Sharon quickly realizes that if the shooter is going to shoot cops like this one then he isn’t going to stop shooting until he’s shot himself. Sharon reluctantly leaves what she believes is a wounded police officer and doubts that he will survive. There simply was too much blood, she would say.
When Erin Post and Julie Nguyen are safely out of the theater and on the way to their car they see a boy in the parking lot who was shot in both his legs and calling for someone to help him. The boy, they said, came over to their car and they sat him in their backseat while they looked for help. The boy was asking the girls to help him find his sister. One of the girls found a police officer nearby and asked him to look at the victim and then she and her brother went out to look for the boy’s sister. The girls recall the police officer took the shooting victim and put him in the back of his squad car then drove him over to a nearby ambulance.
Still 12:49 am, a police officer reports over the radio, “I’ve got a child victim and need a car at the back door of theater nine now!”
Shortly after that the lieutenant at the back of the theater will call for a separation of radio channels, “Lincoln twenty-five, unpatch channel two and channel three…channel two will be inside…channel three will be outside.”
July 20, 2012 12:50 am
It is now 12:49-12:50 am, long after the shooting started and well after the shooter is later reported to be in custody, an Aurora police officer reports in over the airwaves, “321 – One of the shooters might be wearing a white and blue plaid shirt.”
One of the shooters? Here we have one of the officers on scene who believes there are multiple shooters involved and that one of them may be wearing a white and blue plaid shirt. This is quite interesting considering that in just a little over an hour it will be reported by the Chief of Police that there was NO evidence of multiple shooters.
Dispatch would repeat this transmission for clarity, “Copy…outstanding shooter possibly wearing a white and blue plaid shirt.”
Again, despite these transmissions, in just a few hours Chief of Police Dan Oates would declare at his first official press conference there was no evidence of any other shooters involved. How did he so quickly rule out the reports of a second shooter? In addition, I would later find many eyewitness testimonies which also would claim that there were multiple shooters. How were these leads not considered as “evidence” of a second shooter? At best shouldn’t Dan Oates rather have said, “There were early reports about multiple shooters but that turned out to be untrue?” Dan Oates lost a lot of credibility with me when he not only ignored the reports of multiple shooters, but he even dismissed a reporter for asking questions about it later. We’ll get back to that.
Quintin Caldwall and his friend are outside the theater now and overhear general police chatter saying the police have the shooter cornered inside theater nine and still talking about a possible second shooter. What then do we make of this? No evidence of multiple shooters and yet, Quintin Caldwall says he hears police discussing how the shooter is “cornered” in theater nine and hears talk about a possible second shooter?
At 12:50 am someone on the fire channel calls into Century Command and reports, “…I’m down here uh north of the century theaters and I’ve got GSW 18 female…uh, to the leg.” GSW is the acronym for “gunshot wound”. When the response comes that the nearest triage station is already busy with multiple victims, the man reports back, “ok, my patient is stable right now..I’m going to get her loaded up and get going.”
July 20, 2012, 12:51 am
Police and Fire dispatch channels are now busy discussing logistics. It is just about 12:51 am when a police officer will report on radio, “Suspect saying he’s the only one but I’m getting conflicting suspect descriptions from the witnesses out here.”
So once again, more reports are coming in from eyewitnesses who say someone other than James Holmes may be involved. Additionally, it is worthy of note that “official” reports will contradict each other about what the “suspect” supposedly did or did not say immediately after the shooting as well. Some reports say the shooter didn’t say anything and was not cooperative, others say he claimed to be the Joker (a comic book arch nemesis of Batman), while still others would say he told arresting officers about his booby-trapped apartment and that he acted alone. Note again the officer is saying witnesses are giving different descriptions of the shooter. As the audio has already revealed some witnesses are apparently reporting a suspect in a blue and white plaid shirt.
And there is much more to come…