Dark Knight Suspect Was Grad Student

James Holmes' apartment filled with booby traps: police
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 20, 2012 11:55 AM CDT
Dark Knight Suspect Was Grad Student
This photo provided by the University of Colorado shows James Holmes.   (AP Photo/University of Colorado)

The 24-year-old accused of a movie theater shooting rampage was attending medical school until just last month, says a rep for the University of Colorado. The spokeswoman didn't know why James Holmes dropped out of the university, the AP reports. He lived in an apartment building exclusive to med school affiliates, according to a fellow tenant—and police say Holmes' apartment is filled with complex booby traps, including explosives. "We could be here for days" disarming the "sophisticated" traps, police chief Dan Oates tells the Denver Post. Police, firefighters, and FBI officials have been at the apartment all day, with some taking photographs through the window via a fire engine's ladder.

Neighbors say Holmes was reclusive: "No one knew him. No one," says another student who lives in the building. Holmes ignored it when others greeted him, the tenant says. The tenant called 911 early this morning after hearing a song playing loudly and repeatedly at 12:30am in Holmes' apartment, and the building was evacuated after 2am as police searched it. Public records show that Holmes is from San Diego, where his parents still live, and may have once attended the University of California Riverside. He moved into the Aurora apartment in May 2011, and enrolled at the University of Colorado as a grad student in the neurosciences program the following month. (More The Dark Knight Rises stories.)

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