Judge accused of creating 'unusual shroud of secrecy' in movie theater shooting case

Judge accused of creating 'unusual shroud of secrecy' in movie theater shooting case

news.yahoo.com

The former grad student charged in last month's deadly shooting rampage at a Colorado movie theater gave his religion as "agnostic" and his occupation as "laborer" when booked into jail, according to a document released to Yahoo News this week.

The Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office booking report provides few other details about James Eagan Holmes or his motive for allegedly opening fire during a midnight showing of "Dark Knight Rises." Twelve people were killed and 58 others wounded.

The 24-year-old suspected gunman gave jailers his mother's name as an emergency contact.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The report goes on to say...

The judge's order to seal all records related to Holmes' arrest will be debated in court later today. Several media organizations have asked Sylvester to scale back his order barring the release of search warrants, inventories of evidence and other records publicly available in criminal cases. Holmes (Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office) The gag order has prohibited the University of Colorado from releasing public records related to the suspect's time there as a Ph.D. neuroscience student. The Aurora Police Department has also stopped answering routine questions about the shooting.

In my opinion, this just fuels the fire for those of us who think that something is fishy about this massacre, and that Holmes might have been involved in research for the government while at the University of Colorado.

Something went wrong with Holmes while at the University of Colorado, and this just adds to the mystery as to what that was.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I think the air of 'secrecy' began before the judge was even involved.

The way the 'camp' was set up outside the theater, the way witnesses from the theater were detained for long periods before being free to go....

I figured that the officials were trying to make a more efficient initial investigation; but in the end it simply created more 'speculative' media exercise... which I'm sure will lead to legal difficulties when no "impartial" jury can be found (although it may just go to a plea deal - we'll soon see.)

I can't blame judges for wanting to insulate their legal proceeding from a media circus.

While it is true that many concerned citizens and genuinely interested parties do want to know what's happening; the media's inherent 'voyeurism' and tendency towards "showmanship" makes more problems than it solves.

Your correct.

The more cloak and dagger the whole affair is, the more the conspiracy becomes heightened.

The people should demand the information and get to the bottom of what really happened.

reply to post by mikemck1976


Yes there is some kind of dirty rotten business being devised - destroying and changing evidence, people being paid in the back pocket. They all have plenty of time to do this before the trial.

For someone who was falling asleep and acting very strange at the trial, seems to be able to write just fine in my opinion.

Now if we can only get a copy of a page from that notebook he apparently sent to the school, and see if the handwriting matches up that would be great.

Originally posted by Maxmars
I think the air of 'secrecy' began before the judge was even involved.

The way the 'camp' was set up outside the theater, the way witnesses from the theater were detained for long periods before being free to go....

I agree with this 100%.

For some reason things just don't feel right when it comes to this case. The night it happened, all I could do was sit there and wonder why the protocol that is followed, at all major police departments across the country in a situation like the one that developed that night, flew right out the window.

Such as letting the crowd that came out of the theater gather right at the front door while it was suspected that there still may be a shooter inside and the rumors that witnesses saw more than one shooter.

Seems like it was all designed to confuse and distract onlookers as to what was happening inside and out at the backdoor.

Like I said...
"Fishy"

reply to post by scottromansky


i don`t think the handwritng is his i think it`ll be the handwritng of the officer who booked him into custody.

Perhaps judge is not releasing details in an attempt to stifle media coverage in order to make committing such attrocities seem less uh, glamorous. Its early that was a poor choice of words.

The less of a circus the less likely the guy will be perceived as having been made famous for his acts.

Originally posted by scottromansky
For someone who was falling asleep and acting very strange at the trial, seems to be able to write just fine in my opinion.

Now if we can only get a copy of a page from that notebook he apparently sent to the school, and see if the handwriting matches up that would be great.

edit on 9-8-2012 by scottromansky because: (no reason given)

That's paperwork filled out by officer D. Burns. It's right in the middle of the paper.

Originally posted by scottromansky
For someone who was falling asleep and acting very strange at the trial, seems to be able to write just fine in my opinion.

Now if we can only get a copy of a page from that notebook he apparently sent to the school, and see if the handwriting matches up that would be great.

edit on 9-8-2012 by scottromansky because: (no reason given)

This is his Booking Sheet, it was filled out by a Corrections Officer by the name of D. Burns.

In the video at the bottom of the article linked is an interview with one of the attorneys associated with the case. The reason given by this person about the secrecy of the case at this point is (paraphrased) "The authorities are still conducting interviews with witnesses and do not want their testimony tainted with what they could have heard in the news." Although I am very interested in knowing the details, this to me seems to be a very good reason for withholding information. It is standard practice not to discuss an ongoing investigation and apparently they are still collecting evidence in the case. I can see, once this information is obtained, the case will be reopened to the public but for now they are simply attempting to keep it as non-biased testimony as much as possible.

Originally posted by Domo1
Perhaps judge is not releasing details in an attempt to stifle media coverage in order to make committing such attrocities seem less uh, glamorous. Its early that was a poor choice of words.

The less of a circus the less likely the guy will be perceived as having been made famous for his acts.

This is what I was leaning toward. I remember after the shooting took place how the media outlets took this story and ran, I even remember them "naming" the tragedy as "Horror at Theater 9" or something along those lines. I've also seen a few threads on ATS regarding copycats, but none have been successful.

With that said though, the news had already glorified James Holmes before he the bullet casings hit the floor. If the judge had put a gag order on the case to stop the glamourization of the tragedy, in my opinion, they were a bit too late. The cat was already out of the bag so to speak, it just doesn't add up to me.

www.nydailynews.com...

newyork.newsday.com...

Please take a look at both of these links from news agencies, why are most of the photos out there altered of the gas mask, what is the white thing next to original photo and why was it photoshopped out and by? whom....

many of these pics exist, what are they trying to hide what is so important about the white box in the original photo? If you google gas mask in images they show both of them all over the place. Would the real gas mask please stand up?

Why do I think the the gag order was placed on this case?....

The truth maybe stranger than fiction, as we look at the stories that surround the main story of a so called brainwashed lone nut James Holmes who opens fire at a movie theater in Aurora Colorado and his connections to both neuroscience and ‘Super soldier’ or ‘Peak Soldier performance’ experiments and a father that works for a software company that analyses fraud for business.

James Holmes was doing research for DARPA with the help of the Mars, (the same company that brings us such candy bars as the Mars Bar, Twix, and others) to develop a candy bar that is designed to give our boys and girls on the battlefield a "Mental and Psychical boost" or as they say "Enhance peak soldier performance", among other projects.

Also...

According to his LinkedIn profile, James Holmes’s father, Dr. Robert Holmes, who received a PhD in Statistics in 1981 from the University of California at Berkeley, worked for San Diego-based HNC Software, Inc. from 2000 to 2002. HNC, known as a “neural network” company, and DARPA, beginning in 1998, have worked on developing “cortronic neural networks,” which would allow machines to interpret aural and visual stimuli to think like humans.

Ground Zero

Maybe James knew something about the research that he was doing or something about his fathers work, that they didn't want out of the bag.

Maybe James fell victim to his own research and went Mr. Hide on them and there trying to keep it quite.

This really begs the conspiratorial question
do assassins that don't work for the govt. even exist?????????

Originally posted by Domo1
Perhaps judge is not releasing details in an attempt to stifle media coverage in order to make committing such attrocities seem less uh, glamorous. Its early that was a poor choice of words.

The less of a circus the less likely the guy will be perceived as having been made famous for his acts.

Seems way too late for that now. The fame was obtained as soon as the story broke.

What about the witnesses that stated that more than one gunman was involved? They should know, they were there. It seems a gag order was put on that also.

Just too many things that don't fit right in this case.

Originally posted by judus
Your correct.

The more cloak and dagger the whole affair is, the more the conspiracy becomes heightened.

The people should demand the information and get to the bottom of what really happened.

Its an active and ongoing criminal investigation which is a large part of the reason for the gag order. Releasing information on something like this to the public without proper context would be nothing but a poison pill for a fair trial which would almost certainly create grounds for appeals if he is found guilty.

The right of an individual who is being charged with capital crimes absolutely outweighs the public interest in this case. The rights of the accused trump the rights of the media / public.

As for the conspiracy comments I have seen people seem to be missing one critical factor in that theory. He is being charged at the local / state level, not the federal level. With that being said are people suggesting that the Colorado government is behind this incident?

Originally posted by judus
Your correct.

The more cloak and dagger the whole affair is, the more the conspiracy becomes heightened.

The people should demand the information and get to the bottom of what really happened.

That's what a trial is for.... It's not the media's job to get to the bottom of this story, it is the job of a judge and a jury and due process in a court of law.... Yes, sealing the records has prompted some speculation but it has also protected the jury pool from forming preconceived ideas about exactly what happened, prior to the trial.... It's interesting that it's the media pushing the 'what's the big secret' angle.... I suspect the reason has nothing at all to do with what's in the public interest and everything to do with cashing in on a tragedy before it ceases to become profitable....