STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- In the dark, people couldn't even see the fumes they were breathing in, a witness says
- A witness describes seeing people with bullet holes in their backs
- "Mass chaos" followed the attack, another witness says
- A police officer was seen carrying a little girl who wasn't moving
(CNN) -- It was a dark theater, playing a movie that
includes gunshots, in the middle of the night. So when a gunman burst
through an exit door, threw a gas can into the crowd and began shooting,
many inside the Aurora, Colorado, theater didn't realize what was
happening.
Emma Goos saw a man come
through the exit door at the front of the theater, wearing a gas mask
and body armor and wielding a gun.
"I thought it was a joke at first," she said.
Jennifer Seeger, who was
in Theater 9 at the Century Aurora 16 multiplex, said the shooter lit a
gas can and threw it into the crowd, then he shot the ceiling to scare
everyone.
"They just started scattering, and mass chaos just happened," she told CNN affiliate KCNC-TV in Denver.
"I was terrified, so I
just dove into the aisle. And at that point he started shooting people
behind me." Burning bullet fragments ended up on her forehead, she said.
"I just told myself: 'I need to get out of here. I need to get out of
here.'"
Photos: Shooting at Colorado movie theater
Witnesses recount theater shooting
A timeline of the Colorado shooting
Witness saw little girl who wasn't moving
Police Chief Dan Oates
said officers were on scene within 90 seconds of the first call and
immediately detained suspect James Holmes near his car behind the
theater. "The response was very rapid," he said.
The man suspected in the
mass shooting had colored his hair red and told police he was "the
Joker," according to a federal law enforcement source with detailed
knowledge of the investigation.
Adam Witt told CNN that he and his wife had been looking forward to seeing the movie for months.
"The first thing I
noticed was a hissing sound coming from the left side of the theater. I
noticed people beginning to react in the area. I knew something was
wrong," he said in an iReport.
"Then the gunshots
began. A sudden flash of light and loud bang from the right side of the
screen. Then another, and another. There must have been 20-30 at the
least. At first glance they looked like fireworks or something, perhaps a
prank."
But he soon realized what was happening.
"I hit the floor and hid
behind the seats in front of me, pulling my wife down to hide with me.
It was the longest minute of my life," Witt said. "The gunshots just
kept coming. I knew it could be over any second. I knew my wife could be
gone any second. It was absolutely surreal. I felt something hit my
left arm, and my first thought was 'at least it's just my arm.'"
When the gunfire
subsided people took to the exits en masse, he said. "I took my wife by
the hand and we booked it for the back door, trying to breathe through
the gas that now permeated the room."
The area was filled with people screaming -- in some cases, for their children, he said.
Witness: He pointed gun at my face
Witness: People bleeding in theater
Timeline: Worst U.S. shootings
"The entire ordeal was completely surreal, and entirely horrifying."
An emotional movie
patron told CNN that a man sitting next to him was shot. Two people he
believes were the victim's teenage daughters tried to wake the man,
according to Chris Ramos.
Ramos later saw the girls outside, on the phone.
"They were crying," he said. "Their dad was in there," in the theater.
Darius Harvey said the
room was so dark it was difficult to see what was happening. "I couldn't
see anything" -- not even the fumes he was breathing in, he said.
Trey Freeman, another
witness, said the shooter threw a second gas canister. "He looked so
calm when he did it, it was so scary," Freeman said in a YouTube video.
Moviegoer Quentin
Caldwell, who was in an adjacent theater, said, "I think we were 15
minutes in, and there was a chase scene where there was gunfire on
screen.
"And right then out of nowhere on the right side of us we hear a very distinct 'pop, pop, pop, pop.'"
Caldwell saw wounded
people, including one young couple who was holding a bleeding woman by
her face and guiding her down the stairs, Caldwell said.
"I looked to my right
and another gentleman is holding his stomach and running down the stairs
trying to get out of there," he said.
Even after he left the
theater, some people stayed behind not understanding what happened and
thinking the movie might continue, Caldwell said. "I looked at them
like, 'This is real. There's something wrong. We need to leave now.'"
Witnesses described the man as dressed in black and wearing a gas mask and bulletproof vest.
When the gunman began shooting, "I thought there was no way I was going to get out of there without getting shot," Freeman said.
In the rush to leave, some people were stepped on or pushed, Derek Poag told CNN.
Outside the theater, it
was chaotic, with wounded people everywhere, Caldwell said. He saw one
girl in a pink hoodie, her left side peppered with wounds.
Cell phone video taken
outside the doors of the theater complex showed panicked moviegoers
calling out for help or searching for friends.
One man can be seen
walking out with assistance, the back of his shirt covered in blood. A
woman examines her body, as if checking for wounds.
Donovan Tate said he saw
a man crawling, a girl spitting up blood, and people with bullet holes
in their backs. "There was this one guy who was stripped down to his
boxers, it looked like he had been shot," perhaps in the back, Tate
said. "It was crazy."
Alex Milano was in the next theater over that was also showing the Batman film.
He also said there was a shooting scene happening on screen when the sound of real bullets was heard nearby.
"Loud bangs came from
the right of the theater. Smoke took over the entire theater, and it was
really thick and no one could really see anything," he said.
Confused at first,
Milano realized the severity of the incident when he saw "objects"
starting to come through the wall, presumably bullets.
"I saw holes in the wall," he said.
Some people in his theater started moaning in pain, and alarms at the building started sounding.
Outside, Milano spoke with a woman who was inside Theater 9. What she heard "sounded like madness to me," he said.
One scene stuck in his head -- a police officer carrying a little girl in his arms. The girl wasn't moving.
No comments:
Post a Comment