FBI says shooting suspect has ‘no significant criminal past’
Details about James Holmes, the 24-year-old alleged to have walked into a Denver cinema and randomly shot at film-goers, are beginning to emerge.
In an apartment rental application he filed early last year, Holmes described himself as a “quiet and easy-going” student. Other tenants in his building — which is reserved for students, faculty and staff of the medical campus — described him as a recluse.
A pharmacy student who also lives in the building said he called 911 around 12.30am because there was a song blaring from the stereo inside apartment 10, where Holmes lived.
The student, who wanted to be identified only as Ben, said he couldn’t make out the song but that it seemed to be playing on repeat.
He also said Holmes kept to himself and wouldn’t acknowledge people when they passed in the hall and said hello. “No one knew him. No one,” Ben said.
The FBI confirmed the 6ft 3in tall white American has no “significant criminal history”. The only thing on his record is a “minor” driving penalty.
It is also understood that he had no military background and had not been identified as a danger by any authorities.
No indications that such an attack was being planned have been found on any social media websites.
He attended high school in San Diego and went to university in Colorado, Andrea Brown of San Diego Police said.
Media have flocked to the area of San Diego where Holmes’s family live. Police were called to “preserve the peace”, she added.
Speaking to ABC News, a woman identifying herself as Holmes’s mother said authorities “have the right person” and said she needed to “fly out to Colorado”.
When police identified the suspect as James Holmes, people sought to learn more about the man behind the massacre.
Instead, another James Holmes — a resident of Littleton, Colorado, located about 25km from the scene of the crime — was bombarded on Facebook.
“I appreciate the fact that you are trying to become better-informed about the occurrences in Aurora, but you have been somewhat misled, in that I am not the man who did it,” he wrote on Facebook. “I am not a 24-year-old gun-slinging killer from Aurora, I am a 22-year old book-slinging mass eater from Littleton.”
