good evening, everyone, coming to you live from aurora, colorado. you oar in the cnn newsroom tonight. lots to get to tonight. we're about to walk you through the horrific movie theater shooting, minute by minute, as a gunman opened fire. you'll see what he did before hand and how police found him immeately afterward. also right now, police here in aurora are still not talking about possible motives. what would make a young man suddenly commit so much violence

against so many people? colorado police and the fbi have been all over james holmes' apartment today, slowly and carefully since the front door was rigged to trigger a bomb. we're going to live to the apartment building in just a couple of moments. let's go to breanna keeler. >> don, the worst drought in more than 50 years is crippling farmers in the midwest. half of the states in the region are reported to be in severe to exceptional drought. that's the region that produces about 75% of the nation's corn and soybean crop. the drought is especially hard on livestock. many ranchers having to sell off their herds early. with the focus on the colorado movie massacre, the relentless gun violence in chicago is going almost unnoticed. but in the past 24 hours, 21 people have been shot across the city. three died. police are blaming a gang fight for the latest killing. and in syria, rebels are making

slow but steady progress against government forces. that's noticeable especially along the border with turkey. government troops appear to have abandoned some crossings. ivan watson describes the chaos there along the border. >> reporter: one man saying there's no more syrian border anymore, no officials to stamp his passport when he went through. that rebel hold of this entry point would be shaky, though, because we're hearing from all of those travelers there's a syrian government army location only a mile or two away from in. so there could be more fighting around this key entry point into syria. >> at the same time, syrian refugees are streaming across the border, fleeing the escalating violence. more than 120,000 have fled to neighboring countries, and among them, two defecting generals from the syrian military who arrived in turkey overnight. officials say about two dozen syrian generals have now fled to turkey. in bulgaria, a gbus bomber may

have had an accomplice. the suicide bomber highlighted here, blew up the tour bus on wednesday. the driver also died and more than 30 people were injured. officials say a second suspect is a possibility, but it hasn't been confirmed. to japan now, where the government is vestigating reports that workers at the fukushima nuclear power plant tried to deceive the public. allegedly, they were told to use lead covers over the radiation detectors to hide unsafe radiation levels at the plant. this reportedly occurred december 1, nine months after the plant was damaged by a major earthquake and tsunami. let's go back now to colorado and don. >> all right, breanna, thank you. now we'll go over to ed laven r lavendera. so tell us about that explosion

that set off at james' home, the apartment building just a little while ago, it was a controlled explosion, correct? >> yes, this was just a few hours ago. and the bomb technicians and the teams that have been here for more than 24 hours since they took james holmes into custody. it's that red brick building just over my shoulder. the streets have been cordoned off, many of the buildings around it have been evacuated. we know that here in the next couple of hours they will allow people in the surrounding apartments to come back. but what they did earlier when we heard that explosion, it was this technique to try to dismantle some of the trip wires that were connected to the devices they were finding inside of the apartment. apparently that worked to the extent it allowed them to dismantle some of the major pieces that they were the most concerned about. it was in the words of the police chief, a very sophisticated setup inside that apartment and one that was

designed to conflict more damage and pain and the police chief said if anyone walked into that apartment building or that apartment, opened up that door, they could have been seriously injured, if not killed. >> make no mistake, okay, this apartment was designed, i say, based on everything i've seen, to kill whoever entered it, okay? and who was most likely to enter that location after he planned and executed this horrific crime? it was going to be a police officer, okay? so make no mistake about it, what was going on there, and if you think we're angry, we sure as hell are angry. >> and don, over the last few hours since they did that explosion, they've been able to begin taking out a lot of that explosive material and the weapons that were inside that apartment. it was interesting a little while ago, there was eight police officers essentially in a motorcade, escorting a dump truck away. it will be taken elsewhere and

analyzed and now the work of being able to get into that apartment and looking for other evidence that might provide more clues into how exactly all of this was pulled off, this massacre, and more clues into the mind of james holmes as they try to nail down a motive as to why this massacre occurred. don? >> so they removed large volumes of material. i'm wondering if this is why the police chief said that holmes received large deliveries recently. do they think it was bomb making material that he was having delivered? >> when you look at the wide arsenal that james holmes had obtained over the last few months, you talk about the weapons that were bought in various gun stores in the area in the last two or three months as well as the gear he wore. they include a lot of the material, the explosive material that was found inside the apartment.

they say a lot of that was ordered. he ordered some 6,000 rounds of ammunition through online ways and had it delivered to him. so they're starting to piece together the timeline of how all of these different materials were gathered, where it came from and how it ended up in this apartment. >> ed lavendera, thank you. join us at the top of the hour for a special report on the colorado theater shooting. too often when stories like this happen, much of the attention is focused on the bad guy. we're going to try and focus our attention on the victims of this tragedy. join us tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. up next, a timeline of how the shooting massacre unfolded. plus, he was a doctoral student in the neuroscience program, top honors in college. what would allegedly make someone snap? we'll talk to a former fbi special agent. the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state.

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>> reporter: this is what law enforcement sources now suggest happened during this midnight movie. they believe that this suspect actually came into the theater with a ticket, went through an exit door to the right of the screen, and then outside he geared up for the attack and then came back inside to theater number nine, approximately 12:37, 12:38, that's when they say a canister was tossed in through this door. it may have been right before this guy. nonetheless, it began hissing and spraying something that seemed to be something like pepper spray into the room. a man in black comes in behind it. we believe he came through the theater with a ticket, went out, put all this gear on and then came back in. he was wearing a bullet proof vest and a gas mask these people say and he shot into the ceiling first and then began firing into the crowd. police will later say what he had at the time he was doing all

this was an ar-15 assault rifle over here, a remington shotgun and a glock .40 caliber handgun. police say he was firing a lot of rounds very, very fast. now, 12:39, the first call and police officers start racing to the scene. what they found is victims staggering out through the lobby. they surround the place, calling for more officers and ambulances. at 12:42, some of the witnesses say the gunman is still shooting inside. officers urgently call for gas masks so they can theater number nine. at 12:46, at some point here, some of the witnesses say that the shooter simply stops shooting up here and walks out the way that he came out -- the way that he came in and apparently he went directly toward his car, which was parked outside, and that's where the

police grabbed him. police say he offered no resistance, and still had two guns on him, having left one back in the theater, and they say they found another one of the guns inside his car. another hand gun in addition to the vest they also say he was wearing a ballistic throat protector and groin protector and black tactical gloves. simultaneously, officers flood into theater 9, finding several people there who were so injured they simply could not run away in any fashion. they found other people who were hurt so much they did not dare to move them. and they described tremendous injuries. you listen to the police and the witnesses, people shot in the arms and head, the legs, some bullets appear to have penetrated the walls of the theater and hit people in the next cinemas. 12:55, ambulances are so overwhelmed that police officers

are loading up people and taking them to hospitals and they're closing in on the apartment and they're still trying to deal with all that might be left inside. an extraordinary number of events all happening in the space of less than 20 minutes in the middle of the night. >> tom, thank you very much for that. next, a former fbi special agent gives us a profile of the suspect and his behavior. [ male announcer ] sixty-two horsepower. fifty-three miles per hour. the gator rsx 850i. it's a whole new species of gator.

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director at the fbi. tom, thanks for joining us. the fbi special agent here in aurora said just a little while ago that the device inside this suspect's apartment was sophisticated. we know he was a good student, but how does a person learn to make bombs like that? is it as simple as going on the internet? >> well, normally it's not that simple. it may be simple enough to acquire weapons, ammunition, tactical equipment, but to acquire the expertise and successfully assemble a sophisticated detonators, pressu switches, trip wires and other methods of setting off an explosive, that takes a lot of training. people study that and it's difficult to do that. so just to read that off the internet and do it sounds pretty difficult. and i think that's why that's the question of the hour for many investigators, who taught him how to do that? because they're going to know

who else was taught how to do that besides him. >> yeah. when this first happened, i said this is like something a crime drama, csi or something like that that you see on television. for someone to booby trap an apartment. in all of your years in law enforcement, have you ever seen anything like that, especially to this magnitude? >> there was some case where is someone has tried to set up a secondary device so that when the first responders came, a second device detonated. but this is a little bit different. if he's watching these television shows or actually watching live real events, that's the first pce the police and the authories go is to the person's residence to try to obtain computer records and other material to determine who they were in contact with, whether they acted alone, whether they're part of a terrorist organization. so i think just watching other events would have taught him that once he's arrested, the police are going to go

immediately to his apartment and start searching it and it's a logical step for him to assume if he wants to attack them to set up trip wires and booby traps. >> i want to ask you, what attracts someone to something like this? obviously some people like to ride motorcycles or what have you, some people are attracted to guns, they like to shoot off guns. but what attracts someone to -- and what makes someone, and i'm talking as your experience of working with the fbi with profilers, to want to blow up things like that? >> i think many of the behavioral scientist also say that often the person is looking for their 15 minutes of fame or that something has happened to them where maybe in his case when he dropped out of school, he finally has become a failure for the first time in his life. he's been an honor student and successful in everything he's done, suddenly now he's dropping out of that ph.d. program. we don't know if maybe he was

rejected in love. maybe he was trying to establish a relationship and was turned down by someone and a combination of events may have played on his mind that he felt his life was over and he's going to go out in a blaze of glory and make himself famous. >> yeah. that was -- you bring up an interesting point. i thought about that. maybe he was spurned by a girl or something and it drives people to want to get revenge. what we haven't been hearing that much about is those missed signs of the suspect's behavior, like you heard in the gabby gifford's shooting and other massacres. is it too early into this investigation to hear about that? >> yes, it is too early on and they haven't had the ability to get to his computers and e-mail accounts and telephone records to determine who he's been in contact with, who he may have approached and have relationships or attempted relationships with.

so that's one factor. but in some cases, the scientists will tell you that there are cases where there are no indications. that you have a person that, yeah, maybe not quite as average. especially someone as bright as him. an honor student with terrific grades and a ph.d. program that most people wouldn't dream of being able to get into. you know, somebody with that kind of back ground, his only encounter with law enforcement was to get a traffic ticket. so we don't have somebody out killing animals in his backyard or mistreating neighbors or exhibiting the bizarre behavior that we've seen in so many cases, but there are cases where a person seems normal and then suddenly goes off the track like he did. >> but tom, i have to say, hearing about what a terrific student he was and how smart he was, and i've been getting comments from people that it bothers them to hear that. it bothers me, as well. i have known some really smart

people who are crazy, and as they always say, there's a thin line between genius and crazy. so what is the distinction here? why is that such a factor that he was a smart student, so therefore this is out of character. smart people can do odd things, as well. >> you're absolutely right. you can't question hitler as not being smart and look what he did. so that's not necessarily a mutually exclusive factor to be smart and a psychopath. but i'm talking about the other kind of bizarre behavior that we saw in so many other cases of individuals, the charles mansons and the jeffrey dahmers and the unabomber. we don't have that, at least that we know of, in his case. that may be determined in the future investigation. his computer records, hopefully, and i know the law enforcement investigators are going to put a

lot of stock in getting that computer, being able to crack whatever pass codes he has on there and try to see, hopefully the information will be there, who has he been in contact with, what websites has he gone to, and also socially. ter.asn't been on facebook. or is other website, he may be the person on there. that will be an important thing, because it might lead to other people that he was meeting with or exchanging messages with, that we just don't know about, that his parents wouldn't have known about or other friends. >> we can learn more about his mindset and character, as well. tom, thank you very much, sir. >> thank you, don. >> this is a black mark on our history, but there were brave people who stepped up, making their mark on history. one person is matt mcquinn.

he shielded his girlfriend and his gift is recovering in a local hospital. straight ahead on cnn, firsthand accounts of how the mass shooting unfolded from eyewitnesss in the movie theater. and my interview with the victim of the shooting who is recovering in her hospital bed t now. brave knights! as you can clearly see from this attractive graph that our sales have increased by... sorry, my liege. honestly. our sales have increased by 20%.

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half past the hour now. let's go back to breanna keeler to get us up to speed. what do you have? >> in syria, the rebels are making slow but steady progress that's most noticeable along the board we are turkey. government forces appear to have abandoned some border posts. >> reporter: one man saying there's no more syrian border anymore. no syrian officials to stamp his passport when he went through.

that rebel hold of the strategic entry point could be shaky, though, because we're hearing from all of those travelers there's a syrian government army location only a mile or two away from there. so there could be more fighting around this key entry point into syria. >> at the same time, syrian refugees are streaming across the border fleeing the escalating violence. more than 120,000 have fled to neighboring countries. their numbers include two defecting generals from the syrian military who arrived in turkey overnight. officials say about two dozen syrian generals have fled to turkey. too japan now, where the government is investigating reports that workers at the fukushima nuclear power plant tried to deceive the public. allegedly, they were told to use lead covers over the radiation detectors to hide unsafe radiation levels at the plant. this reportedly occurred nine months after the plant was damaged by an earthquake and

tsunami. >> and the worst drought is crippling farmers in the midwest. half of the states are reported to be in severe to examinaticep drought. the drought is especially hard on livestock. many ranchers have had to sell off their herds early. back to you in aurora, don. >> i want to show you something here. there is a makeshift memorial that was -- they sort of came yesterday and started bringing candles and balloons and teddy bears, as you and i see on these horrific stories that we have to cover like this, virginia tech, columbine and on and on. we have seen people going over there. they have been crying and hugging each other. breanna, sadly, that happens when we cover these stories. i remember it happens at virginia tech. i'm sure you have similar stories, as well. >> that's right. i think that -- and i was at virginia tech. i think that when you're watching these folks there,

there's something about having a physical spot to go to, and that was as well the case at columbine. there were a series of crosses that were set up there to honor each of the individuals. a lot of times you see something that's makeshift and then it comes something a little more permanent, don. >> breanna, thank you. we'll get back to you later on with the news of the day. thanks again. that crowded movie theater behind me here friday morning was one of shock that turned to horror. keira phillips has the account from the witnesses. >> reporter: it was a midnight mov movie massacre. this is the cell phone video taken by someone at the theater, showing frantic people fleeing the building. some with blood on their clothes. >> somebody kicked in the emergency exit and started throwing gas grenades and shooting people at random. at first it took me a second to

realize what was going on. as people were running away, i hit the ground so i wouldn't be hit. >> reporter: at first, some of the moviegoers thought the smoke and gunfire was just a stunt, all a part of the premiere. >> he came in and he started lighting a gas can and he threw it into the crowd. at that point he slot into the ceiling to scare everybody and they started skatderring and mass chaos happened. i was terrified so i dove into the aisle. i had bullets that were burning my forehead. >> reporter: another witness in the theater saw bullets actually coming through the walls. a friend described the gunman to him. >> a man about six feet tall, taller than her, kicked through the door and he was in she said a riot helmet and had a bullet

proof vest on. she id that he was completely covered in all black with goggles and she said that after that point, when she saw that he was holding a shotgun, her and her boyfriend dropped to the floor and just kind of started to crawl to see if they could get away. they got up and they started to run through the emergency exit. she said that when she turned around, all she saw was the guy slowly making his way up the stairs and just firing at people, just picking random people. >> reporter: random people. shaken. shocked. and right in the middle of the gunfire, many of them teenagers like 15-year-old william. >> all i saw was him bust open the entrance and he throws a tear grenade and, you know, we're thinking at that point it's part of the show.

but then we realized he started shooting off rounds and we realized it was serious. there was a lot of screaming and it was shocking. >> reporter: outside the movie theater, those who managed to get outsafely describe the horrifying scene. >> when we got out of the building, it was just chaos. you saw injured people. there was this one guy who was on all fours crawling. there was this girl spitting up blood. there were bullet holes in some people's backs, some people's arming. there was this one guy who was stripped down to just like his boxers. it looked like he had been shot in the back or something. it was crazy. >> reporter: keira phillips, cnn, atlanta. steven baldwin is a popular movie actor. we'll talk to him about violence in movies and whether it's a factor in this incident in ones like this. that's next.

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since the shootings here in aurora, the sheer magnitude of the violence, some are raising questions about violence on tv and in the movies. earlier, actor steven baldwin came on to join me. he's been in some very violent movies like "the usual suspect" and i asked him how he felt about what's happening here and whether or not the media and hollywood cause some of this violence. >> there is a desensitizing that happens with a lot of people. i don't think that's the case here. this guy obviously is nuts. it's a bad situation.

i would like just to say for myself, i would like to ask the entire country to be praying for aurora right now. that's something that will bring back a lot of hope and make a lot of healing happen. this is beyond everyone's comprehension. >> as we reel from what happened here, we're not pointing the finger at the moviemakers. christopher nolan says believe movies are one of the great american art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important enjoyable pastime. the theater is my home and the idea that someone would violate that place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me." so still, there's a responsibility, even though it may not be directly, maybe it's a chance for us to all step back and even in the media, even what we do, all of us to step back and take a look. >> and even in regard to second

amendment people and guns and all that, this guy purchased 6,000 rounds in six to eight weeks prior. i mean, perhaps -- i don't know, i'm a gun advocate, i am. obviously this is tragic. i don't want to go there with the whole guns aren't the problem thing. i believe in personal protection myself. but maybe in the future as part of the -- >> should you be able to buy 6,000 rounds in a short amount of time? >> with these things continuing to happen, now even as a gun enthusiasts, it's making me say maybe there needs to be a change. >> so the nra, gun rights advocates are going to go, oh, my gosh, steven baldwin. what do you say to them? >> listen, it's like i said, you know, guns and weapons are part of our police force military. they protect us. in the right hands they do good. in the wrong hands, we stand here today. but i definitely think that maybe there should be some new thinking with the technology we have to monitor people when

these types of situations occur. >> people say the people who wrote our constitution didn't know about these automatic weapons that can shoot off hundreds of rounds quickly. do you think -- do you believe the gun lobby is too strong maybe in washington? >> listen, i think as our nation advances and things change and things like this -- listen, i'm not going to deny when things like this happen, it needs to be re-evaluated, no question. i don't think it's right for people who are common sense logical, law abiding citizens to not have the right to bear arms and defend themselves. i agree with that. and i'm onef them. >> i don't think anyone says that shouldn't happen. but just the amount of it, and how easy it is to get it. >> as we progress, we always have to step back and evaluate in the future what that means.

>> yeah. very good. you're very careful. you're very honest. you said it made you rethink yourself. >> you. again, with the patriot act, there's monitoring and surveillance that's allowed to happen. i think a red flag should have gone up when this guy bought 6,000 rounds this such a short period of time. >> steven baldwin, thank you. next, my interview with a victim of the shootings who is recovering in a hospital bed now. i see pride. you know, i have done something worthwhile. when i earned my doctorate through university of phoenix, that pride, that was on my face. i am jocelyn taylor. i'm committed to making a difference in people's lives, and i am a phoenix. visit phoenix.edu to find the program that's right for you. enroll now. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires.

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earlier today, i spoke with a victim of the shooting, still recovering in a hospital bed. her name is christina blanch and she served in iraq. i asked her if this was anything like she had seen in a war zone. >> this was worse because i had to sit there and watch like my friends and people that we were just laughing and joking with five minutes prior, never saw it coming.

they didn't sign up for that. they didn't sign up to be shot that night. you know what i mean? if you're in the military, you signed up for it. you're signing up possibly risking your life. whereas these people were going to a movie to enjoy themselves, to spend time with whether it was their family or friends. they didn't sign up to be shot. >> your friend, alex. >> alex sullivan, yeah. >> what did you learn this morning? >> i learned that he died. >> hard to fathom? >> he's the reason we all went, so. it just sucks, you know? i don't want to say nobody deserves something like this. >> can you forgive him, the gunman? >> can i forgive him? probably not today, not tomorrow. eventually. i'm a pretty, i guess, laid back and outgoing person.

i like to move on. i don't like to keep dwelling on the past. so eventually, yeah. i'll be able to forgive him. just not right now. he killed somebody i cared about, he injured aeck of a lot of my friends. so for right now, no. down the road, yeah. >> next, survivors of this mass shooting share stories of horror in their own words. that's great. melons!!! oh yeah!! well that was uncalled for. uhh...mr. gallagher. incoming!!! it's wasteful. you know jimmy. folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico sure are happy. how happy, ronny? happier than gallagher at a farmers' market. get happy. get geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more. by what's getting done. measure commitment the twenty billion dollars bp committed has helped fund economic and environmental recovery.

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colorado in a state of shock, anger and disbelief as people here try to come to grips with this mass shooting tragedy. it is a moment or in this country that we'll never forget. the survivors share their stories now in their own words. >> somebody is shooting in the auditorium. 315 and 314, that's at least one person that's been shot. there's hundreds of people just running around. >> as soon as we heard the first shots, my sister immediately grabbed my arm and wanted to leave as quick as possible.

it was ter fieing. >> i just remember thinking i'm not going to die in here. me and my kids are not going to die in here. >> everybody has kind of been puzzled wondering what's going on. there was something going on and everybody tried to start forsziforsz i forcing their way towards the exit. >> there was a girl spitting up blood. there were bullet holes in some people's backs, some people's arms. >> he was wearing a ballistic helmet, a tactical ballistic vest, a throat protector, a groin protector and black tactical gloves. >> our cops went through a lot. they rushed people out of that theater into police cars. i've heard some compelling stories. >> i mean, the whole country

recognizes that this is something that we don't accept. we can't explain at this point. but we're not going to just let it happen to us. we're going to push back. >> the last thing she texted to me was i'm so excited about your trip here next week. and i need my momma. i was blessed. only for 25 years, but i was blessed. >> i want the victims to be remembered. rather than this coward. favo? fight back fast with tums. calcium rich tums goes to work in seconds. nothing works faster. ♪ tum tum tum tum tums your mouth has sipped, snacked, ...yellowed... giggled, snuggled, ...yellowed... chatted, chewed, ...yellowed. and over all those years, your teeth...have yellowed.

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mattresses start at just $699. all right, brianna keeler is in washington. let's talk about what's happening in this scene. investigators have been back on the scene. you can see some flashing lights over there at the cinema. we saw them bringing things out a little bit earlier and gingrigoing back into the theater. and then, also, i want to show you this, brianna. this makeshift memorial. as the evening and the day progresses, more and more people come out to this memorial. as you said, people need to feel some sort of togetherness. a place where they can meet and congregate and get support. >> yeah, i think there's this need. you feel like you want to do something. i saw that at virginia tech. people feel like they want to

show solidarity with members of the community. and sometimes, really, certainly the first thing you can go and pay your respects and show that you're part of the community and that you're paying your respects. >> yeah, so brianna, there are other headlines, do you want to get us up to speed on that? >> yeah, many states are reported to be in severe to exceptional drout. that region produces about 75% of the nation's corn and soybean crop. many ranchers have had to sell off their cows early because they can't afford to feed them. with the focus on the movie massacre, the relentless going on in chicago have been on going. police are blaming gang fighting for the latest killing. u.n. general secretary says

the fighting in syria is destroying the country. i'm sure many syrians would agree with he. battles raged in hot spots. dutch journalist sandra van horn is in the capital. >> in the wider area, it looked like life as usual. now, the last three hours, new development has been fierce fighting in the southern suburbs. i can hear heavy shelling. i can hear gunfire. it's been going on with an intensity that i didn't see before in the nine days that i'm in damascus right now. >> the rebels are making gains in other parts of syria. they have seized key towns and another sign that the regime may crumbling. two more effective generals arrived in turkey overnight. and in bulgaria, officials say a bus bomber who killed five

israeli tourists this week may have had an accomplice. the man highlighted right there blew up the tour bus wednesday. the driver also dried and more than 30 people were injured. officials tell cnn that a second suspect is a possibility, but it isn't confirmed. to japan where the government isn't inrest gaiting roorts that the government tried to deceive the public. this reportedly occurred december 1st, nine months after the plant was damaged by that major earthquake and tsunami. >> now we go to don lemon on a special report on the colorado theater shooting. it begins right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> good evening, eon