tell your delegate and state senator to vote yes for schools, jobs, and small businesses by saying yes to national harbor. tonight on a special edition of "nightline" t rampage, at least 12 people killed and 58 wounded, it's the worst shooting spree in american history, as an audience engrossed in new. batman," he opened fire, again and again. after a day of searching, we talk to the grieving families. >> please tell me she's alive. of course, he couldn't tell me that. >> the suspect, he is alive. and the police have him. a 24-year-old who left bomb squad scrambling to disarm his

booby trapped apartment. the latest details on the man who told the police i am the joker. and high alert, as security is tightened at theaters nationwide. new questions about copy cat attacks. how safe the are the movies this weekend. this is a special edition of "nightline," tragedy in colorado. the movie theater massacre. >> good evening. i'm bill weir. during a fight scene in the "dark knight rises," batman extorts cat woman to put away her weapon. no killing. no guns. sadly in the theater last night, life did not imitate that bit of art. that film became a killing round. families are reeling. the young man is in custody and trying to figure out how to disarm the suspect's apartment.

abc's david wright begins our coverage tonight from the denver suburb of aurora. >> good evening, bill. we're a few yards away from the theater where that massacre took place. at this hour t coroner is at a blow kal high school where families have been agonizing all day about their missing loved one. outside that high school, as you can see, people are crying. >> the midnight showing of the "dark knight rises," fans across the country, irresistible as the bat signal. at the century 16 theater here in aurora, the crowd included jennifer seeger, a young couple with their two kids and jessica ghawi, a 25-year-old sports caster who goes by the name jessica redfield. movie doesn't start for 20 minutes, she wrote, excitedly in

capital letters. the last tweet she would ever send at 11:37. about 12:05 right as the credits started to role, a man in the front row got up, pretending to take a phone call. he went out the emergency exit, dropping open the door behind him. 24-year-old james eagan holmes was apparently gearing up for an action scene of his own. police say he had with him a smith & wesson assault rifle, a remington pump action shotgun and two glock semiautomatic pistols. 12:39 this was the scene on the screen, christian bail, holmes came back through the emergency exit wearing a gas mask. witnesses say he threw a green canister into the crowd, filling the theater with smoke. >> your eyes are burning. makes you want to close them. you can't breathe. >> reenacting a scene, witnesses say holmes fired into the air and then started shooting into

the crowd. >> first, was the guy seating right next to me got shot in the chest. >> the bullet cases falling on my fore med. >> at that moment, i remember thinking i'm not going to die in here. me and my kids are not going to die in here. i need to get them out. >> he walks further, he points it at me. he has a rifle in my face. >> there's a moment where my daughter tripped. i just pulled her up and i was just dragging her. i was thinking, we have to get out. i have to get out the door. i if just fall dead, i have to get my kids out of here. it was so horrible. >> we have seven down in theater 9. seven down. >> police arrived on the scene, less than two minutes after the rampage started, but it was chaos. >> what's happening? >> oh my god. >> i have a child victim. i need rescued at the back door of theater 9 now. >> yelling fire in a crowded

theater may be enough to cause a stampede. opening fire meant udder pandemonium. >> the first thing we see 15, 14-year-old girl with a bullet wound in her leg. >> according to witnesses, holmes tried to blend in with the crowd. >> he stayed within the theater. people were just running. he was just walking. he was just walking. >> mr. holmes was apprehended outside in the back of theater. he was apprehended with three weapons. >> holmes immediately surrendered. police observed his hair was dyed orange. he told them, i am the joker. he also told them the movie theater, his apartment, and his car were booby trapped, just like the comic book villain would do. a full hour after the rampage began t story broke over the air waves. by then, 18 ambulances were

there, and transporting the most serious cases to six local hospitals. 12 people killed and 58 injures. 70 victims in all. so many the police turned the backseats of their cruisers into make-shift ambulances. >> back is full of blood. don't know if that matters or not. >> full of what? >> blood. >> by 2:00 a.m., holmes apartment block was evacuated. the bomb squad started assessing the booby traps. they were extensive. >> i see an awful lot of wires, trip wires, jars full of ammunition. jars full of liquid. something that look like mortar rounds. we have a lot of challenges to get in there safely. >> today, inside dozens of hospital rooms, survivors struggle to make sense of all of this. >> it was cold and calculated, definitely. it seemed very methodical. the way in which he was firing and how he wasn't moving position. he was just unloading into the

crowd. >> and all day long ten bodies remained inside the building while law enforcement secured the scene. their families and friends left waiting and wondering. >> tell me where he is? okay? find my son. i don't know where he is. okay? somebody find him and call us. tell him to call us. >> his son, never called. sadly alex sullivan is dead. late in the day, the authorities finally started to bring out the bodies. among the dead, jessica ghawi redfield. that aspiring skorts caster to excited before the movie. tonight her mother spoke with diane sawyer. >> my life is forever changed and forever damaged. by one person's horrible, violent choice. >> astonishing, there was not jessica's first time in harm's way. last month, she happened to be in a toronto food court when a

gunman went on a deadly rampage there. her friend peter burns said that experience led her to make the most of every day. in her blog she wrote, i was reminded we don't know when or where our time on earth will end. when or where we will breathe our last breath. this morning, when peter opened up his facebook page, there was a message from jessica. >> it said, hey. >> a message she wrote just before the movie. >> it goes, hey, are you guys back in town. you know, it was her checking in. and. >> by the time you got that message, she was already dead. >> yeah. >> i'm david wright for "nightline" in aurora, colorado. >> our thanks to david. coming up next t latest on the unfolding investigation into the alleged shooter, his arsenal and the explosive surprise he left for police. [ male announcer ] if you want play in the same sandbox as luxury s.u.v.s, it helps to have an interior full of hand-selected wood trim

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his criminal record, nothing more than a speeding ticket. he was a ph.d. candidate with a mother who has experience as a mental health professional, so much of the aurora shooting suspect's profile doesn't seem to fit the destruction he unleashed in that theater. abc's brian ross has the latest on james holmes. >> reporter: when the mother of james holmes was reached in her san diego home today and first told what had happened overnight, she expressed little purr prize. you have the right person she told abc news. i need to call the police. authorities said today the planning for the theater attack began at least two months ago when holmes purchased the first two guns at denver area store, passing the required background check. >> in the last 60 days he purchased four guns at local metro gunshots and through the internet he purchased over 6,000

rounds of ammunition. >> reporter: it was over the last few months that holmes, who was phi beta kappa in college, saw his academic and career dreams collapse as he withdrew from a ph.d. program in neuro science at university of colorado cam pause. >> his life continued to collapse for, i bet, a number of months or maybe aechb few years. and as his issues with perhaps delusion, paranoia got greater, he couldn't deal with what was going on around him. >> he grew up in a san diego community called rancho penasquitos. >> he is a member of the jr. varsity soccer team at west view high school. >> that's where it made me think about the times where he was kicked out of class. he was just that person. >> one former classmate remembered him as the class bully.

but others in his neighborhood said he was a classic loner. >> he was just quiet. >> unable to find a job, he moved to colorado last fall and appeared to be nothing more than a quiet and easy going graduate student. but he was a different jim holmes who showed up at this san diego pawnshop where the owner said he caught tips on firing the guns he had planned to use. >> we carry all of those firearms in stock, very specifically reb james holmes face. >> last night, neighbors at his apartment building said they heard loud tech know music coming from his apartment. but the recorded sounds of gunshots added in. holmes was already at the theater at the time. >> as odd as what really brought up the red flags for us, the apartment complex is very quiet. there's no noise, nothing. then all of a sudden yesterday night around midnight this morning, music starts up out of nowhere. that was od. mo one throws parties in that apartment. >> then holmes apparently attempted to make himself in the

joker character of the batman series. according to a briefing given to the new york city police commissioner raymond kelly. >> he had his hair painted red. he said he was the joker. >> he's a guy that has so left reality that he now is in this make-believe world that he's part of the batman world. and that he's going to go in and play this character and through that character he's going to kill people. >> reporter: police say holmes toemd them he was extremely calm throughout the evening because he had taken the powerful painkiller vicodin, about two hours before the attack. his final step, police say, was to booby trap his apartment, which sha say was so full of chemicals and incendiary devices that it may be die days before the bomb skaud can figure out how to diffuse them. >> i say jars full of ammunition, jars full of liquid, things that look like mortal rounds. we have a lot of challenges to

get in there safely. >> victims and their families are left wondering why. experts say in such cases parents often know, without specifics, that something is wrong. >> in so many of these shoots happened before, they are care rid out of people point of desperation or felt they may have had no other options left. >> today his father robert, a software engineer, left the family home in san diego under police protection to fly to colorado to see his son. >> police say they are certain holmes acted alone. there could be copy cats tonight. >> so what sort of steps are they taking? >> the police chief said he's been contacted by chiefs all across the country. he's told them what he's doing, putting extra duty officers at those theaters. >> we also understand, amc, they don't want to discourage, costumes, fans coming and being searched, i understand.

>> yes. across the country, there are concerns someone trying to capitalize in the same publicity stint that james received. >> he went to see it and looked for the exits. changes the way people are thinking about movies tonight. stay with us, much more as our special coverage continues. not at all. 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. ♪ [ acou[ barks ]ar: slow ] ♪ [ upbeat ] [ barks ] beneful playful life is made with energy-packed wholesome grains... and real beef and egg.

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one of the most depressing aspects of this rampage is just how familiar it is to the american experience.

we've seen it so many times t body counts, the search for mote it gun control debate. the numbers may be different this time, 12 dead, four guns, 6,000 rounds of ammunition he purchased online. in order to put this into a national context, here are some other numbers to consider. >> in america, over a dozen guns are legally sold every minute of every day. there are almost 300 million privately owned firearms in this country, almost enough to arm every man, woman, and child. but while there is a gun in four out of every ten american homes tonight, a small percentage of owners have most of the weapons. but the average collection swelling in recent years to around seven guns per owner. with this massive supply, prices have dropped. the cost of james holmes 'mass iarsenal was around $3,000. with bullets going for 50 cents a piece, he dould fill 1010

round rifle for around the cost of a tank of gas. >> more guns with less crime, since the early '90s when many states relaxed their weapon laws, violent crime has dropped 70%. despite the rampages on campuses and military bases t hail of gang bullets in chicago that hill killed over 200 so far this year t national murder rate is at a 47-year low. on the other side of the argument, the brady center points out that american still kill each other with guns at a level that is stagger compared to the rest of humanity. >> this article found that our gun murder rate is almost 20 times higher than the next 22 richest nations combined. but regardless, polls show that public attitudes don't change much even after a mass slaughter like this one. 49% say it's more important to protect gun rights while 45%

favor tighter gun control. no one of any political strife can deny the human cost of our collective trigger fingers. in the 44 years since bobby kennedy and martin luther king shot to death, bullets ended the lives of over 1 million people, including 12 in aurora, colorado, that came together at midnight, just looking for a cheer at the super hero. >> we don't mourn statistings, we mourn sons, brothers, moms and friends. on behalf of all of us at abc, sincere condolences to all those who love, all those who were lost. thank you for watching. good morning america will have much more in the morning. have a safe weekend.