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tv   Weekends With Alex Witt  MSNBC  July 21, 2012 4:00am-5:00am PDT

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to prove how great the fit is even under a fantastic dress. the best protection now looks, fits and feels just like underwear. we invite you to get a free sample and try one on too. colorado nightmare, the day after. still more questions than answers in that theater massacre leaving the nation in shock. he was really big guy, really terrifying, wearing a gas mask and he like a kevlar kind of suit. he looked like a s.w.a.t. guy as far as that goes. he looked like he was in the military or a s.w.a.t. guy. >> how long -- >> a vest on. >> and at this hour, the mystery still unraveling at the apartment of the suspected
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killer. >> the investigation determined that his apartment is boobytrapped with various incendiary and chemical devices and apparent trip wires. >> police try to figure ow how to get into the suspect's apartment while we learn more on the man who he is and how he plotted his alleged crime. and heartbreaking stories of victims and their families. >> you know, the thought crossed my mind that he was going to walk up the aisles and, you know, kill everyone, and so there's definitely a moment where in my mind, i thought, wow, this really might be the end. >> and today, heightened security at theaters as a nation mourns in the wake of one of the biggest mass killings in its history. go morning, everyone. new developments on the effort to enter the suspect's boobytrapped apartment. a robot will attempt to enter
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the residence this morning. investigators discovered the apartment is indeed rigged with potentially deadly explosives. nearby residents evacuated. the suspect, 24-year-old james holmes, arraigned on monday. police say he purchased 6,000 rounds of ammunition and four guns in the weeks before the attack. however, the motive remains unknown. the shooting left 12 people dead, 58 injured many of them seriously. let's go now to the tense scene outside the apartment and the dell tis attempt to get inside and search for more evidence. late yesterday the chief described what's inside that apartment. >> it is a very vexing problem, how to enter that apartment safely. i personally have never seen anything like what the pictures show us is in there. i'm a layman when it comes to bomb stuff. i see an awful lot of wires, trip wires, jars full of ammunition. jars full of liquid.
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some things that look like mortar rounds. >> nbc's mike taibbi is there live for us. mike, with an early good morning to you, what's the latest from the scene? >> reporter: good morning, alex. yeah, i spoke with a couple police officers from aurora a few minutes ago who said in about two hours the attempt to enter the apartment pt resume. it was shut down overnight. there wasn't a lot they could do overnight. the chief talking about what they saw. you used the word potential. potential explosives. it still is only that. this suspect allegedly did tell police when apprehended the apartment was boobytrapped and it certainly looks that way. the chief talked about the last trip wires and bottles and vessels of unknown substances and other things that looked like explosives, but that's what they look like. they've been very, very careful. in about two hours, as i said, they're going to muster the teams to be certain there is a safe way to enter that apartment. so far, direct observation from
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those aerial views. mostly video with cameras. as you said before, this building and four other adjacent building was evacuated yesterday. last night the police allowed some of the residents to the go back into their apartments in the adjacent buildings, just for a few minutes and then the police escorted -- retrieve personal items, personal records, needed medicines, that sort of thing. they suspect they may be able to go back in later today. maybe not. if it takes longer to diffuse the situation. a tremendously traumatic period for this community and the nation. as the chief talked about the entire incident on his own personnel. >> our cops went through a lot. as i told you this morning, they rushed people out of that theater into police cars.
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i -- i've heard some compelling stories. one of the things we are working on is how we're going to deal with our own trauma and we spent some time today with our three department psychologists and somehow in the next couple of days when this has slowed down, one of our highest priorities is to deal with our own officers and how they cope with this event. >> reporter: in the meantime, the police do have to get into james holmes' apartment. when they doll they'll finally recover some evidence, the important question, in understanding this, what happened to james holmes and what caused him to do what he allegedly did. it's easy enough to know what help was, a gifted student and all that, but how he became what he supposedly, reportedly, allegedly became, still just a suspect at this point. it won't be known until they start taking evidence and inventory of what's in his apartment and analyze us a thl. as i said, that will resume in
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about two hours. meantime, holmes is not talking to the cops, not cooperating at all. he's asked for an attorney and due for his first court appearance monday morning. >> he did identify himself at the joker at the outset. can you confirm those reports? >> reporter: that's what police have said and the observation was made by new york city police commissioner that that may be what he was attempting to prove, his identity for some reason, but i can't make that direct connection and i think it's a little risky at this point to do that. could that be a motivation for something like this? it's impossible to speculate about that now, but more about that obviously will be coming out in the days ahead. the important thing is to find out at this point what he did, whether there's still a danger to the community from the circumstances in his apartment, and then what comes out in court starting on monday. alex? >> indeed. my taibbi, thanks. and joining me, clint van
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zandt. good morning. >> hi, alex. good morning. >> inside the investigation. what are the questions police are trying to answer now? >> everybody wants to know motive from the day something happened until the day this individual appears in court. you and i and everybody say, we would never do anything like that, so why would someone else? well, the investigators have to consider that, but they also have other issue, alex. in 75% of the mass murder cases in the united states, there have been other people, other than the sole person who committed that crime, there have been other people who knew about it. who knew something was either going to happen or had suspicions. so this is something investigators have to determine, too, and as you and mike were just talking about, we've got the scene at the apartment, and realize that supposedly a timer went off or music went off right at midnight, about 30 minutes before the actual shooting took place. that could have been for three
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different reasons, alex. number one, it could have been the alleged shooter, the individual who had that apartment. perhaps he was trying to draw attention to the apartment. get somebody to open the door. maybe the devices would have gone off, and just like the situation in norway, 364 days ago, where the shooter in that case set off a bomb, an explosive device in one place and then went somewhere else, knowing that law enforcement would respond in one direction, so he went to the other and shot the place up. or it could have been trying to actually set a device off that would injure first responders, police officers, law enforcement. so this has to be determined, too. was there an alternative motive? was there anybody else who knew about this, or anybody else who assisted? >> yeah. you make a good point. i think that's just a recent fact that been coming out about the music starting at midnight and stopped at 1:00 abruptly.
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very loud music and apparently james holmes bottom neighbor, the one underneath him, went against the advice of her boyfriend, knocked on the door to say, turn this music down. luckily, thankfully, no response from that knock on the door. police officers, trying to elicit answers and he's not talking. what does an investigator do? give him time or put pressure on to try to get what they need? >> you and i and everybody else have the right to remain silent, thank god, in america, and in this particular case, any statements that he made to law enforcement initially can be used, but you know, as soon as he says, i'd like to van attorney or as soon as i as an fbi agent would start to ask his questions. advise him of his rights, he wants an attorney. like every cop show you see on television, you have to stop asking questions.
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now, the questions can still be asked of his attorney to see if he would cooperate, of his parents, of his friends. so there's a lot of information gathering, both person to person as well as we're looking on the internet for websites and other places, other postings he may have made. >> you know, clint, we're looking at pictures of his car, and adjacent to the car are the items that they took off from him. i mean, he was so heavily protected, goes and does this mass, you know, shooting, and then he comes back and he gives up relatively easy. they said that he didn't fire at them. he just gave up. what does that tell you about his mind-set? >> well, when you look at, he had body armor on. he had a ballistic helmet on. he had ballistic leggings on. so many protective devices on. alex, he carried handguns like police and fbi. he carried shot pt guns like police and fbi.
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a semiautomatic rifle like police and fbi. he dressed like a tactical or s.w.a.t. team member. so you know, this guy in his mind, whatever fantasy he was involved in, was almost a wannabe type of aspect to the someone who dresses, who uses weapons like that, but, again, alex, the bottom line, when law enforcement confronted him, they gave him two choices. surrender or die. and he could have chose either one, but he laid down the weapons. he gave up. even though he was prepared. alex, he had taken allegedly -- taken a heavy-duty pain pill about an hour and a half before he did this. why would you do that? so, in case you got shot or injured, you could stay in the battle. you could keep on fighting, but for whatever his reason, he chose to put the weapons down and surrender. number one, he may simply not have wanted to have engaged in a gun battle with police. number two, alex, i think this guy's going to want to tell us a story somewhere down the line and wanted to live to explain
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the unexplainable. how do you commit murder and mayhem to this degree? >> yeah. like there is an answer with that. clint, may i ask you quickly, descriptions about him, his personality, the word loner, kept to himself. shy. you know, it was snag we aometh hearing in the media room. were you surprised at that? >> we're never surprised afterward. we all have benefit of 20/20 hindsight and do this autopsy of the situation, you're go to have people say, oh, yeah. i knew the guy was strange. i knew he was differ. we have to be careful of putting labels. i heard people saying, he's a psychopath a sociopath, as if that alone would explain this type of behavior. you and i are made up of a lot of different situations and our background and our history and our parents. so to try to explain this terrible action by simply one label is something we shouldn't do. this is going to take time.
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we need to leave it to the professionals to figure out the whys. thank god we know the who. >> yeah. and clearly, part of a very, very complex person, attributes of a very, very complex person. appreciate your time. thank you. from his hospital bed, stephen barton recovering from a gunshot wound and other injuries to his arms and face, you can see there. the 22-year-old was traveling on a cross-country bike ride from connecticut with a friend when he stopped in colorado. like many in the theater, he felt at first he wouldn't make it out alive. >> just like unloading into the crowd. it seemed to me to be very purposeful and -- and methodical. the thought crossed our mind that he was going to walk up the aisles and, you know, kill everyone, and so there's definitely a moment when, you know, i thought like, wow, this really might be the end. >> i actually thought more
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people would be dead, just because he had this high-powered shotgun and i guess other guns, and i guess since he -- it seemed that he was just spraying the center of the theater. >> doctors expect him to recover, and his friend was not injured. he said he and his friend hope to finish their bike journey. up next, inside the investigation and hear more explicit horror stories from survivors who were just feet from the gunman as colorado and this country mourns. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world.
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total chaos. people running, screaming. you know, saying, my friend just
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got shot. my, you know, my sister just got shot. like, just everywhere. everywhere you turned. you know, people were just in complete panic. >> we are getting more dramatic eyewitness accounts of the terror that unfolded inside that colorado movie theater when a gunman opened fire killing 12 people, injuring 58 others. this morning the survivors are reliving the terror while police piece together exactly what happened. nbc's miguel almaguera is live with more. miguel, good morning. what's the latest from there? >> reporter: alex, good morning. the people here started lining up at 6:00 p.m. friday to buy tickets for this movie. apparently the gunman was among them, who was also in line and bought a movie ticket. police say james holmes is the man responsible for the bloodshed. >> 315 and 314, a shooting at the theaters.
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>> he would shoot off a round of six to eight to ten shots and it sounded like he was reloading but you could hear the screams of, like, children. >> reporter: 70 victims total. 12 confirmed dead. dozens transported to the hospital. the victims soaked in blood, some carried out by family and friends. police say the alleged gunman, 24-year-old neuroscience graduate student james holmes wore body armor and was armed with an assault rifle, a .12 gauge shotgun and two glock handguns. minutes into the batman movie he opened fire. his hair dyed reddish-orange, he told police he was the joker. >> in the last 6 off days purchased guns through the internet over 6,000 rounds of ammunition. >> reporter: witnesses say holmes entered through an exit door, tossed what appeared to be smoke grenades, fired a single shot into the air and then
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sprayed bullets over anyone that moved. holmes was taken into custody minutes after leaving the theater. >> he surrendered without any significance to our officers. >> reporter: today detectives have no motive and believe holmes acted alone. just four miles from the crime scene, police swarmed his apartment. >> his apartment is apparently boobytrapped. >> reporter: friday police foun i found incendiary devices inside his home. the apartment complex evacuated. across town, victims rushed to the hospital. the youngest, 3 months old. the oldest, 45 years old. >> injuries to the leg, chest and abdomen. >> stephen is see the carnage and can't shake the nightmare. >> at the time i thought it was still fireworks. then i got hit here and realized it was something much more serious.
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>> reporter: this is now the deadliest shooting here in the state of colorado since the columbine massacre back in 1999. a tragic day, not just for this state but for the entire country. alex, we should mention that suspect is expected to be in court on monday. >> miguel, can you confirm for us that all of the victims have been removed from the theater, because i know it was a very arduous process yesterday trying to examine the crime scene. >> reporter: when we left, police had not removed the ten bodies still inside the theater. trying to walk through and re-create much of the crime scene. this morning, no official confirmation but certainly they were trying to get the bodies out of that theater as quickly as possible so they could hand them back to family member, alex. >> okay. miguel, thank you. the shooting in aurora is the latest. the 2008 shooting on the campus of virginia tech, the worse in u.s. history by a single gunman.
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shot and killed 32 injuring 15 others before turning gu ining himself. 2009, opening fire on a military base in texas. 13 killed. 42 injured. and the shooting at columbine high school in 1999. two teenagers shot and killed 12 of their classmates and a teacher before killing themself, and in january of just last year, a gunman opened fire at a meet and greet with congresswoman gabby giffords, six people were killed and 12 others wounded. and who doesn't want 50% more cash? ugh, the baby. huh! and then the baby bear said, "i want 50% more cash in my bed!" phhht! 50% more cash is good ri... what's that. ♪ you can spell. [ male announcer ] the capital one cash rewards card. the card for people who want 50% more cash.
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by what's getting done. measure commitment the twenty billion dollars bp committed has helped fund economic and environmental recovery. long-term, bp's made a five hundred million dollar commitment to support scientists studying the environment. and the gulf is open for business - the beaches are beautiful, the seafood is delicious. last year, many areas even reported record tourism seasons. the progress continues... but that doesn't mean our job is done. we're still committed to seeing this through. the community in aurora, colorado, is remembering the victims of friday's horrific shootings. several memorials took place including one near the theater where the 12 people were kill and others hurt.
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a makeshift memorial with many holding candles. in other news, more fighting in the capital of syria. government forces say they've regained part of damascus after almost a week of fighting. they made a tactical withdrawal but force rees mas remain in ots of the capital. meanwhile, border crossings, taken over, at least two in turkey. new dames out about mitt romney's trip abroad next week. governor romney departs thursday and meets with leaders in the uk, and poland. and george bush will not attend the convention. he supportses romney but his desire to stay off the political stage ate this point in the post-presidency's he respectfully declined the invitation to go to tampa. and state unemployment rates released yesterday in 27 of the 50 states. the unemployment rate rose in
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june. the key battleground states, five out of nine had increases. ohio is the sole swing state to see its number improve by fa falling .01%. could see heat records broken today in several parts of country. bill karins is here with the forecast. good morning, bill. >> a good saturday morning to you, alex. the big weather story continues to be some of the drought and the amazing heat in the middle of this country. today we have excessive heat warnings for the st. louis area, des moines, omaha, lincoln, through topeka and st. louis through the tail end of the weekend check out highs. 107 in wichita. 105 in dallas. 102 in kansas city and into sunday, the heat, if anything, begins to expand a little. st. louis jumps up to 104. kansas city, 106. talking a phoenix-type desert heat through the middle of the nation paper mazing stuff in
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kansas city. the next five days well above 100 degrees and no rain in sight. this drought is going to expand and it is getting worse. saturday forecast, the only cool spots on the map continue to be both coasts from seattle to san francisco and also from new england down through the mid-atlantic and if you have to worry about rainy weather today, the southeast has the best shot of seifing showers and storms and that actually continues into the sunday forecast. alex, you get the picture. incredibly hot conditions continuing through the middle of the country. the drought is getting worse and the situation for the farmers is looking pretty dire. back to you. >> yeah, it is. okay, thanks so much, bill karins. more on the tragedy in colorado and the gunman behind it. we're getting new information about just who james holmes is from the people who knew him as a boy and a young man. why should our wallets tell us what our favorite color is?
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welcome back to "weekends with alex witt" and our continue coverage of the tragedy in colorado. this morning the u.s. flag at the white house, at the capitol tlshs at half-staff in honor of those killed in aurora. president obama ordered all flags throughout the country to remain at half-staff until wednesday evening. today investigators will try sending a robot into the boobytrapped apartment of the theater shooting suspect. the police chief says the man was armed with four gurns and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition. the aurora police chief says possessing the weapons was no crime. >> all the weapons that he possessed he possessed legally and all the clips that he possessed, he possessed legally.
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and all the ammunition that he possessed, he possessed legally. >> the suspect is the 24-year-old james holmes. police captured his moments after the shooting. holmes has an attorney and will be arraigned on monday. plips do not vat motive. the shooting left 12 dead, 58 others injured many seriously. officials are working to release the names of the victims. well, the theater is closed this morning as police begin their second full day investigating. nbc's leanne gregg is there for us live. good morning. what's the latest? >> reporter: good morning, alex. you know, many questions today surrounding what may have caused the former neuroscience student who recently dropped out of college to plan and carry out such a deadly attack. meanwhile, this community is still stunned about what happened inside the sold out theater. ♪ your grace is enough >> reporter: gathering at vigils not far from the crime scene trying to make sense of one of
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the worst shooting rampages in u.s. history. james holmes kicked off the exit door, tossed in smoke devices and came in shooting. he was dressed in black wearing a gas mask and body armor, armed with an assault rifle, a .12 gauge shotgun and two glock handguns. ten were killed at the scene. two died later. stephen burton is among the 58 injured. >> at the time ip thought it was still fireworks and that i got hit here and then i realized it was something much more serious. people started screaming. there was a lot of chaos. >> at that moment i just remember thinking, i'm not going to die in here. me and my kids, we're not going to die in here. i need to get them out. i need to get out and all i could think was, if i stand up, he's going to shoot, because that's what he was doing, and i was just -- trying to think -- >> reporter: a few miles away, the suspect's apartment described by aurora officials as extensively boobytrapped continues to be a focus of the
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investigation. with help of a robot, official, working on a plan to disarm what appears to be bottles connected with wire, possibly incendiary devices. colorado's governor is among those struggling to understand why this happened. >> 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. ♪ for me >> reporter: a community in mourning agency the investigation enters another day. vitch more vitch maniey vigils expected. they want to be very careful they don't destroy evidence in the process of getting into that apartment. the suspect gunman spent
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much of his life growing up in suburban san diego with his mother, father and sister, and neighbors share new details about the james holmes they know. and they say they remember him as quiet and shy. >> i just keep thinking, what happened? what happened to a nice, little boy from a nice family, and it's terrible. >> i'm going to say a lot of prayers for him. and the families that were affected by this. it's really sad. >> the owner of one san diego pawn shop said she talked with holmes about guns and rifles several times in the past year. for mow, joined by an investigator from the "weekend updat update" -- "washington post." you include interviewers with people who knew him in san diego. what did they tell you about holmes and the person they remember him to be? >> good morning, alex. you know, i found those interviews really depressing. in addition to how sad the event itself is the tragedy, talking
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to these young people who are in the beginning stages of their jobs and their young adult lives, very few of them could remember any details about a classmate who graduated from westview high school with them. many of them almost were embarrassed to say that they recognized the picture. they remember the name, but they don't know very many dames about him. there was one woman that i interviewed who said she took a liking to him, because she likes underdogs, and she said she always found him sort of sad and shy, sweet. very kind. would respond when spoken to. did not initiate conversation. really interested in video games, and she said very pointedly that what she noticed most about him was that he really lacked self-confidence, but never had anything about him that would have indicated the events that would unfold in aurora on friday.
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>> i can absolutely see why you got depressed by these interviews, but lacking self-confidence, despite a pretty stellar academic career, right? >> right. of course. personal self-confidence, describing a boy who didn't really have any girlfriends. who couldn't really make any contact directly with people is different than excelling in academia. what we learned in our interviews with people who knew him at the university of california riverside and also in his neuroscience graduate program in colorado, they describe somebody who was really quite bright. was doing well at high school, in honors. that's the reason he got into the the university of california program. then, also, excelled in his graduate program -- i'm sorry, in his undergraduate program. was frustrated. couldn't find a job after finishing college. came home for a while, and then headed off to what looked like a really demanding health sciences
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ph.d. scandidacy and within a short period of time flamed out, and add vidvisers who didn't wa be quoted said he looked like somebody who they might be able to help, but who was going down the drain academically there. >> hmm. and he was studying what was it? neurolo neurology, neuroscience? >> yeah. neuroscience, and my colleague, joel, had done really interesting interviews with people and learned as well that he had been taking a class that was about neurological disorders. so here's a gunman who, you know, just days earlier, weeks earlier, had been taking classes trying to understand how the brain dissolves. >> you know, there are so many questions right now, carol, but you write, "what's certain is that the killer planned his
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crime carefully gearing up as if he were a commando or a bad guy in the movie before invading the century 16 movie theater." your article features an interview with a forensic -- testified on mass shootings. what kind of insights did he give you? >> the forensic psychologists were interesting and informative because what they all spell out is that, a, mass shooters are young, isolated men, but, also, the other key factor is that these men have a psychotic break. you know, a snap. where while they were always very self-confident about something in their lives, and had high expectations for themselves, they are starting to see that unravel in some way. they are devastated by something. as well, there are often men, young men, who are having
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trouble establishing -- this sounds odd -- but satisfying relationships with a partner. sexual relations, and they find that they can't establish that part of their masculinity. so destruction becomes part of their way of becoming male. and the whole idea of him literally purchasing these guns days after he decides to drop out of his graduate program also harkens to these interviews. somebody who's read ilizing, my life is not turning out the way i expected. >> thank you for your thoughts and sharing them with us. nice to see you. >> thank you, alex. up next, the shooting in aurora has police in other cities reconsidering security at movie theaters. we'll see how new york's authorities are doing. also ahead, the last words
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and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. now here are front pages on the tragedy in colorado. denver post, our hearts of broken. and the gazette, gunman like assassin ready to go to war. >> the sentinel, just chaos. this prompted other cities to heightened security any theaters. in new york city, police deployed to screening of the "dark knight rises." wnbc is live with all the precautions. jonathan, good morning to you. do you get a sense this is keeping people april way from theaters? >> reporter: not at all, alex. good morning to you. despite yesterday's tragedy, many theaters here in the city remain sold out. we're here at the amc in times
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square where this morning you can actually see a pretty gi group of people outside the doors. the theater doesn't open until 9:00. many already have their tickets but are here early to beat the crowds to get good seats. it's because of these crowds that police are really responding. they've been here throughout all of the screenings making sure the doors are secure and things went smoothly. police officials have told us they received calls worried about security efforts and worried about the security of these theaters. now pshgs police commissioner ray kelley says there is no specific threat right now. he does say leading in the weekend he wants to make sure everything runs smoothly. take a listen to what he told us. >> we're doing that to address the potential of a copycat event, and to reassure moviegoers, particularly parents, we know a lot of young people are going to see this movie. >> and security like this increased not only here's in the
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city but throughout the tri-state area and country. we can tell you on long island, police were there with dog, moviegoers saying they felt much more secure with that kind of enforcement there. and we spoke with movie ggoers the amc. one, we actually noticed yesterday in a viewing, a guy wearing some kind of hoodie by the door. immediately called security. was much more on alert. security quickly handled that situation saying that gentleman wasn't aware of the anxiety he was causing. amc released a statement saying, "for the safety and security of our guests and associates, we are actively working with local law enforcement throughout the nation and under the circumstances we are reaching out to all of our theaters to review our safety and security procedure procedures." warner brothers is do this as well. removed a trailer for an upcoming movie known as "the gangster squad."
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in that trailer showing as recent as yesterday, there was a scene in the trail wrer the characters open fire into a movie theater. you can imagine, a lot of anxiety from that trailer. it has been removed and security now stepped up to make sure that moviegoers here in the city and throughout country feel safe while enjoying the movie. alex? >> yeah, jonathan you know, it's interesting, because here in the studio, i've bp talking with those of us in the crew, and we're all sort of put off right now. the prospect of seeing "dark knight rises," no matter how much we were eagerly anticipating this movie. i'm curious, when you talk to those people in the line behind you, how much are they aware of what happened? certainly they know the news, but how much is that sort of weighing in on them as they go in to see this movie? >> reporter: yeah. you know, it's really hard to talk to somebody that hasn't heard be what happened yesterday and, of course it is on the minds of everybody here. still, they say it is a movie that they love, they followed for so many years. they come into the movie aware of what happened yesterday, but they say they want to feel safe
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and secure watching it, and getting lost in the activity of it. you mention ed a lot of anxiety. scared of what happened yesterday. there is a lot of gunfire and violence in the movie. one of the people we spoke with said while watching this movie yesterday, about 20 minutes in, a little on edge when that shooting broke out in the movie itself. so, of course, a lot of people still on edge of their seats as they do watch this movie. >> indeed. thank you very much, wnbc's jonathan good to see you. sending shock waves around the globe. you're watching "weekends with alex witt." ok! who gets occasional constipation,
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here is the latest on the tragedy in colorado. the alleged gunman is 24-year-old james holmes. neighbors described him as smart but shy. police say they will soon release the names of the deceased. 12 people died, 50 other injured. the white house issued photos of president obama yesterday as he reacted. the president called aurora mayor from the motorcade while driving to the airport in palm beach, florida. a bit later president obama and vice president biden met in the oval office to discuss the tragedy. the shooting massacre is not just making headlines here. it is doing so overseas as well. there is more impact in the rest of europe.
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joining me from london, duncan. what has been the reaction in europe in the streets and the press? >> it has been on the front page of most of the newspapers here and leading tv coverage. the batman premiere was cancelled. here the queen sent a message to president obama extending her heart felt sympathy. she said my thoughts and prayers are with the family who was killed. back to the newspapers and lots of coverage of what one calls a massacre including profiles of holmes and his alleged victims. as happens there is explanation and analysis of gun ownership in america. in the french daily they explain to readers second amendment
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rights and the power of the gun law. they list the past shootings that they say have fuelled debates on weapons. in britain's guardian newspaper it points out that deadly shootings have happened in places like scotland, norway and australia. it says the u.s. has had more than its shares. it continues every murder requires its perpetrator. generally the coverage is one of shock at how the shootings happened and of the incredible survivor stories. >> it led the news on bbc america last night. across the pond the arrival of the olympic torch, that was overshadowed. this is really permeated everything including people's conversations. do you find people talking about it as they are walking about or
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gathering in the pub? have you gotten that anecdotal evidence? >> definitely it really moved the olympic news story further down last night. just talking about it on the streets and in offices i think it is shocking by its very nature but it was the way it happened in a movie theater, families and survivor stories it is definitely something that has resonated. >> and the fact that warner brothers cancelled through the premiere is that the right thing to do? >> absolutely. yes. the actors pulled out of their publicity junkets. it was not seen the right thing to do to be talking about the movie and promoting it, box office gross at a time like this especially because of the allegations about how the shooter went in and how he was
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dressed up. >> many thanks. our coverage of the tragedy in colorado continues in a moment. i will rejoin you at noon easton for the latest on the investigation and also how the people of aurora, colorado are coping with what is sure to be another rough day ahead of them. [ male announcer ] this is rudy. his morning starts with arthritis pain. and two pills. afternoon's overhaul starts with more pain. more pills. triple checking hydraulics. the evening brings more pain. so, back to more pills. almost done, when... hang on. stan's doctor recommended aleve. it can keep pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is rudy. who switched to aleve. and two pills for a day free of pain. ♪ and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels.
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