Breaking News: Over a Dozen Dead, Many Wounded at Aurora, Colorado Opening of Dark Knight Rises (Live Feed) (Update: 71 People Shot?!) (Update: A Picture of the Man Falsely Accused of Being the Alleged Shooter) (Update: "Joker" Story Confirmed?)

Update (VI): And the prize for the stupidest commentary of the day goes to the NY Post analyzing whether the Batman movies, comics, etc. inspired the alleged killer.  Since I reported earlier the claim that he said he was the Joker, that seems like a self-evident “yes.”  But witness these eerie similarities, according to the Post:

— Bruce Wayne's drive to become Batman arose from witnessing the deaths of his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, at the hands of small-time criminal Joe Chill, who shot and killed them after they had left a movie theater.

— The Batman video game called "Arkham City" takes place in an abandoned movie theatre (The Monarch, outside of which Bruce Wayne's parents were killed).

Actually the game takes place inside a city-sized prison, a fact you might have figured out from the fact it is called Arkham City.

— In the third issue of DC Comics' "Batman: The Dark Knight," a gritty retooling of the Batman character that was written by Frank Miller in the 1980s, the Joker kills an entire late-night TV audience with gas.

Um, it’s called The Dark Knight Returns.

—In the same book, a man starts shooting up a porn theater after getting fired from his job.

— "The Dark Knight Rises" features at least two scenes where unsuspecting people are attacked in a public venue: the stock exchange and a football stadium.

I admit I don’t know those materials quite well enough to verify those claims, but those basic errors don’t exactly help matters.

On the other hand for more intelligent commentary, here’s what Nolan had to say about it:

Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of 'The Dark Knight Rises', I would like to express our profound sorrow at the senseless tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora community. 

I would not presume to know anything about the victims of the shooting but that they were there last night to watch a movie. I believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful pastime.  

The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me.

Saying that this killer might have been inspired by Batman is not the same as blaming the movies or anything like that.  There is an important difference between causation and blame.  But one suspects that Nolan is feeling like he is at fault tonight, which is incorrect morally but human.

Update (V): The “Joker” story has been confirmed?  Apparently:

The man in custody for allegedly killing 12 people at the screening of the latest Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado told authorities after the shooting that he "was The Joker," NYPD police commissioner Ray Kelly said today.

Kelly told reporters the suspect, identified by federal officials as 24-year-old James Holmes, had dyed his hair like The Joker. The Joker is a well-known villain in the fictional Batman universe. The attack took place at a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," the final movie in a Batman trilogy, following "The Dark Knight" in which The Joker was the principal villain.

Two federal law enforcement officials confirmed the details of The Joker costume to ABC News. Police said the weapons used in the massacre include a military-style AR-15 assault rifle with a high-capacity drum-style clip, a shotgun and two handguns. The guns were purchased legally over the last several months, according to law enforcement officials.

"It's another tragic event from an obviously deranged individual," Aurora City Councilman Bob LeGare told ABC News. "I don't know what more can be said."

Which means that this guy is so Looney Tunes that it is really kind of a waste of time to try to pin this on any political ideology.

It also means that I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss what Kelly said earlier.  For that I apologize.  But I would ask the question why he was told so much?  Obviously Aurora police wanted to keep that to themselves for one reason or another, and it didn’t fit their plan for Kelly to say this.

And I think what is the most irritating is the hypocrisy involved.  Look, for instance, we had the Occupy-linked plot to bomb bridges in Ohio.  We had an Occupy-linked plot to set off bombs at the NATO summit.  Convicted domestic terrorist Bill Ayers has marched with them in Chicago.

And then there is the website Occupy for Accountability.  That is a safe link, and you will see why I am providing it in a moment.  If you go to their donate page, it takes you to the Velvet Revolution site, or a donation site for Velvet Revolution and Justice Through Music Project.  Velvet Revolution and Justice Through Music Project, of course, are the activist “charities” run by convicted domestic terrorist Brett Kimberlin, of whom I have written extensively.

Indeed you can see a music video he made praising the Occupy movement as the second coming of anti-Vietnam protests of the 1960’s, here.

And then there is the epidemic of rape at these Occupy camps, well documented by my friend Lee Stranahan.

And by comparison, have you ever heard of any violence at a Tea Party rally?  Any rapes?  Any domestic terrorists embraced by them?  I never have.

And yet while there was just as much evidence suggesting that Holmes was part of the Occupy movement’s Black Bloc, and there is far more evidence that Occupy is in fact a violent movement, what do they go first to?  “Oh, maybe he was a Tea Partier!”  The bias involved couldn’t be more plain.

The correct answer is everyone should have shut their mouths until they had verification.  But if they don’t follow that principle, then the fingers should have been pointed at Occupy, not at the Tea Party.  Judging by any reasonable standard, it is much fairer to call Occupy a violent movement than the Tea Party.

But, hey, why let facts get in the way of “Teh Narrative?”

Update (IV): Exclusive to Allergic to Bull, I have a photograph of the Tea Party James Holmes who was falsely accused of being the James Holmes who (allegedly) carried out the Batman Massacre:

Actually, that is a patented Aaron “Worthing” Walker head fake.  That is actually Richard Jewell, a man who heroically prevented a bombing at the Atlanta Olympics only to be tarred in the media as the main suspect.  The actual perpetrator was Eric Rudolph.  Here’s the actual James Holmes incorrectly identified as the college-age (alleged) shooter:

And here’s a Breitbart piece talking to him.

Meanwhile Time Magazine comes out in favor of politicizing murder.  Lovely.  Well, good, then there is a liberal activist who is tied to Occupy, numerous liberal causes, and George Soros and Mrs. John Kerry, and is a convicted terrorist who has more recently tried to frame me for a crime.  So why don’t you decode the politics in that?

Not that I pin that conduct on the left, but if you are going to have different standards from me, then fine: but I only ask that you apply one standard, okay?

Update (III): Just heard in an official statement: 71 people shot.  Ali Akbar is right to say that this is a high number of people, but bear in mind that these people were tightly packed in presumably, in the dark, in smoke and confusion and starting from a sitting position. 

From the descriptions it sounds like he was ready for a fight, which makes it odd that he gave up so easily.

And Steve 57’s comment at Patterico’s leads me to ask a rude question.  Major Hassan was an army shrink.  And now this idiot was studying neuroscience.  What does it say that both men were around people who are supposedly trained to recognize dangerous people, and yet neither of them were stopped ahead of time?

Also I have taken to calling this the Batman Massacre.  It might offend people to see what is supposed to be a good movie associated with this, but its frankly more descriptive term than "theater shootings."

Update (II): Oh my...

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the gunman suspected of attacking a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado resembled Batman’s arch-villain “The Joker” at the time of the shocking attack.

“We have some information, most of it is public. It clearly looks like a deranged individual. He had his hair painted red, he said he was ‘The Joker,’ obviously the ‘enemy’ of Batman,” Kelly said at a news conference after noon.

That is not supported by anything I have read, and by the way, the Joker has green hair, remember?

Update: Well, I had to take a nap and some facts have been sorted out in the meantime.  Right now they are reporting thirteen dead, which is one less than before, and thirty eight wounded.  I have changed the headline in the post to be more vague, because these numbers could change.  I suspect the prior “fifty dead” number was a rounded estimate.

And we have reports that the alleged killer’s apartment is booby trapped with explosives.

And we have a suspect’s name and photograph.  His name is James Holmes, and this is what he looks like.

And sadly, and inevitably in our culture, we have people politicizing this already.  For one, we have seen people say tighter gun control could have prevented this.  No, gun control would not have prevented this.  For instance, when Brett Kimberlin was convicted of various crimes related to the Speedway Bombings, one of his crimes was unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.  What they mean by that is that having been previously convicted of felonies (related to being a big-time drug dealer), he was not supposed to possess his explosives.  And yet he did, and he set off eight bombs in six days.  Gun control laws didn’t protect the people of Speedway, Indiana, and it would be unlikely to have saved a single life in that theater.

On the other hand you know what might have mitigated this situation?  A well-armed, law-abiding citizen with good aim.

But that anti-gun commentary is responsible commentary, in the sense that it is based on facts we do know—that someone has murdered people with guns.  On the other hand there are people already rushing to blame the right.  First, we had ABC News reporting on a possible Tea Party connection that had no real verification.  This led to this correction on their site:

An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect. ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted.

Mistakes happen, of course, but why is it always made in favor of Democrats/liberals and against Republicans/conservatives.  For instance, there are equally unverified reports that in fact Holmes might be a member of the Occupy movement.  I don’t say that to suggest it was true, but to make the point that there is as much evidence to blame Occupy as the Tea Party—which is, in my opinion not enough to blame either political movement.  But why is it that when there is equal evidence indicating that this is an Occupy person or a Tea Partier, that the irresponsible linking is only made to the Tea Party?

Meanwhile, the award for the stupidest attempt to link this to current politics is liberals on twitter blaming Rush Limbaugh for this.  Why?  Well, you see the villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane, which Limbaugh thought was a reference to Romney’s Bain Capital.  Which, if Limbaugh was not joking or otherwise unserious, is a pretty stupid comment.  This movie has been in the works for years, and Bane himself is one of the most important villains Batman has faced.  He broke Batman’s back in this iconic image, in 1993:

So the “logic” goes like this.  Limbaugh says the movie is an attack on Romney, so a Republican who is so devoted to Romney (snort) that they can’t stand to see a movie attack him decided to go crazy and kill all those people.  Oh, except for some inconvenient facts.  First, liberals have been equating Romney to Bane long before Limbaugh said this.  For instance it was not a Romney fan (snort) who created this:

Nor was it a Limbaugh fan that promoted it.

And if we are going to play this stupid game, well, let’s hear what the co-creator of the Bane character thinks:

As for the mainstream media’s attempt to usurp the character, [Chuck] Dixon said, “It’s ridiculous. Obviously Bane was not created as an attack on Mitt Romney. We never heard of Romney twenty years ago.” Also, within the context of the movie, Dixon said the comparison between Bane and Romney does not make sense. “My understanding is that Bane is more of an Occupy Wall Street type. Romney is more like Bruce Wayne.”

So if we are going to have someone killing because they are upset about a villain representing an attack on their politics, look at Occupy again.

And as for the linking to Romney, well, that belongs to the Maureen Dowd school of accusation, where if something sounds like something else, it must be linked to that other thing.  So Donald Rumsfeld who served this country honorably for years is a presumptive alcoholic because he has the letters R-U-M in his name, leading her to call him Rummy.  And Paul Wolfowitz must be evil because he has the letters W-O-L-F in his name, leading him to be called Wolfie by Dowd.  I suppose if I ever become a paraplegic, Dowd will think I am faking it because my name is Aaron Walker.

Orrrrr just realize that all of this speculation at this time is silly.  Right now it could be as simple as that this guy knew that lots of people were going to be in this enclosed place, in the dark and confusion, giving him a chance to kill more people as he apparently wanted to do.  Anything beyond that should wait until we know more.

We now resume our original post, as is.

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I am actually probably going to nap but I wanted to get this out.  There has apparently been a shooting at the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises.  This was in Aurora, Colorado, which appears to be a suburb of Chicago Denver.

One report says that it is fourteen dead, fifty wounded.  Here’s what Fox News’ site is saying:

At least 14 people have been killed and up to 50 injured after a mass shooting at a showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" at a suburban Denver movie theater, police [sic]

Police have the shooting suspect in custody. 

Earlier reports said there may have been a second shooter, but police believe only one shooter was involved, KDVR tells Fox News.

Police Chief Dan Oates says city police are checking the area for explosives.

Police spokeswoman Cassidee Carlson says "the scene is still very active and we have little information for release at this time."

Read the whole thing.

And I am going to try to embed the code for a live stream from a local news station.

Update: It does work if you press the play button.  FYI.  If that doesn’t work, go here.

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My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years.  I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video evidence.  If you would like to donate and help my wife and I in this time of need, please go to this donation page.  And thank you.

Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  As you will see by the time I am done telling my story that this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.