CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- Police officers who arrested James Holmes after
a shooting massacre that left 12 people dead testified Monday that they
found Holmes outside the movie theater standing with his hands resting
on top of his car and that he was "completely compliant" when told to
surrender.
Aurora Police Officer Jason Oviatt said in the
preliminary hearing that he at first thought Holmes was a fellow officer
because he was dressed in full body armor and wore a gas mask and
helmet.
"He was just standing there not doing anything, not urgent
about anything," Oviatt testified as Holmes, dressed in a red jump suit
with a full beard and dark, brown hair, sat passively next to his
defense team -- occasionally looking at the two officers during their
testimony.
Prosecutors on Monday began laying out their case
against the accused mass murderer at a five-day preliminary hearing at
Arapahoe County District Court here. The hearing is expected to include
the first extensive public disclosure of details of the attack.
Holmes,
24, faces 166 counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder in the
July 20 shooting spree at a suburban Denver movie theater in Aurora
that left 12 people dead and 58 wounded. The preliminary hearing will
determine whether there is sufficient evidence to put Holmes on trial.
Oviatt
on Monday testified that he ordered Holmes on to the ground, handcuffed
him and then dragged him a few feet away from the white sedan so he
could safely search him for weapons.
Holmes, he said, didn't resist "not in the slightest. He was completely compliant."
As
he was dragging Holmes a handgun magazine fell out of his pocket. He
also found a knife in his belt and another knife in his pocket.
Aaron
Blue, a fellow officer, testified that he took out a knife and cut away
Holmes' protective gear to search for any other weapons. Blue said he
asked Holmes if he had any explosives and Holmes told him that he had
improvised devices at his house that would go off if they were
triggered.
Blue described a scene of mayhem, with victims fleeing
the theater as he tried to maneuver his police car to the rear of the
theater.
He said once they got Holmes into the back of a police car he became fidgety, was sweating profusely and reeked of body odor.
A
third officer, Justin Grizzle, described in emotional detail
transporting six shooting victims to the hospital on four separate
trips.
"There was so much blood," he said. "I could hear it sloshing around in the back of my car."
One
of victims was Caleb Medley, who was shot in the head. Grizzle, using
profanity, implored the budding stand-up comic not to die on the way to
the hospital. She later died.
The shooting is among the largest
mass shootings in U.S. history but has been overshadowed by a series of
attacks capped by the massacre in Newtown, Conn., last month of 20 Sandy
Hook Elementary School students and six school employees. And Saturday
morning, just 4 miles from the mall where the July shooting spree took
place, four people were killed, including the suspected gunman, after a
six-hour standoff at a townhome.
Monday's proceedings are drawing
intense interest. Court officials are bracing for an onslaught of
onlookers, anti-gun activists and news media.
A court-imposed
gag order has kept much of the case under wraps, preventing prosecutors,
police and officials at the University of Colorado, where Holmes had
been a student, from discussing it. Court filings made public last week
suggest the case against Holmes will be mapped out through charts,
myriad witnesses, video and other evidence. Holmes' court-appointed
attorneys have subpoenaed two unnamed witnesses who were not at the
theater, according to court records. Presiding Judge William Sylvester
is permitting prosecutors and the defense two "advisory witnesses,''
according to court filings.
At a midnight showing of the Batman movie The Dark Knight,
a gunman entered the packed theater, launched a smoke grenade and then
began firing dozens of shots into the crowd. Holmes was arrested outside
the theater by Aurora police, who found him in riot gear, armed with an
assault-style rifle with a 100-round magazine, a pump-action shotgun
and a semi-automatic pistol. A fourth gun was found in his car. In the
weeks leading up to the shootings, police say, Holmes used the Internet
to stockpile weapons and 6,000 rounds of ammunition, and acquire
improvised explosive devices that he rigged to explode in his apartment.
Holmes'
lawyers have suggested in prior court hearings that their client, who
dropped out of the University of Colorado's neuroscience doctoral
program after failing an oral exam in June, suffers from mental illness,
a strategy that suggests an insanity defense. At earlier hearings,
Lynne Fenton, a university psychiatrist, said she had treated Holmes
more than a month before the shootings but had no contact with him after
June 11, when she reported concerns to campus police.
Some
family members of victims will attend the hearings, in the main
courtroom or in a private room that normally holds juries. For others,
the hearing -- and other mass shootings -- are too painful reminders of
loved ones lost.
San Antonio resident Sandy Phillips's 24-year-old
daughter, Jessica Ghawi, was among those killed in the Aurora theater.
On the morning of the Newtown massacre, Sandy and Jessica's
stepfather, Lonnie, were boarding a plane for Denver to accept an
honorary degree on Jessica's behalf from Metropolitan State University,
where she had been studying to pursue a career as a sportscaster.
"We were shaking and sobbing and crying in the back of the plane,''
Sandy Phillips says. "You go right back to the day you lost your loved
one. It takes you back to your own grief and doubles it.''
She won't be at this week's hearing. "I'm not strong enough to go through this right now," she says. "It's much too hard.''
Jerri
Jackson, whose 27-year-old son, Matt McQuinn, was killed as he shielded
girlfriend Samantha Yowler, won't attend, either. "I know it's part of
the process -- but I can't do it. I do think there is enough evidence
to put him on trial."
USA Today