E-Mail
Print
AURORA, Colo. (AP) - The Aurora police chief says the suspect in the movie theater shooting set up booby traps in his apartment specifically to kill a police officer who might have opened the door.
Chief Dan Oates says "we sure as hell are angry" at that.
At a Saturday news conference, he also tried to head off a mental incompetence defense by saying suspect James Holmes was deliberate and calculating in receiving numerous commercial deliveries to his home and workplace over the past four months. He says that explains all the ammunition Holmes had.
Oates says the major threat has been removed from the apartment, but an FBI agent says some dangers still remains, though families should be allowed back into their apartments by Sunday.
Earlier, a bomb squad has set off a small detonation in the apartment.
Someone yelled "fire in the hole" a few times and then a fire engine horn honked. Then there was a pause of a few seconds and then a bang that was not much louder than a shotgun going off.
There was no fire or smoke, but it did blow out what remained of the window and its frame to the apartment.
Aurora police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson says the controlled detonation was successful. She says there's work to be done in the apartment to include dealing with other devices.
Earlier in the process, police disarmed the trip wire and the first explosive device in the apartment of the suspect in a movie theater shooting.
In her words: "This is some serious stuff that our team is dealing with."
Local agencies elicited the help of bomb experts in coming up with a plan to enter the apartment while keeping people safe and preserving evidence inside.
Officials positioned vehicles and personnel around the apartment building.
Carlson told reporters Saturday morning that the first goal is to make the area safe, then remove items from the apartment that could explode.
That includes about 30 shells that will be placed in sand trucks and taken to a disposal site.
INVESTIGATION SPECIFICS
Details are coming out about how a bomb squad is taking apart the booby trapped apartment.
A law enforcement official, citing the ongoing investigation, spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press and says officers disarmeded one explosive with a "water shot," a device that emits a shock wave and water,
Police said earlier they had "defeated" another explosive attached to a trip wire but did not say how they did it.
The official said the apartment appears to have three types of explosives: jars filled with accelerants, chemicals that would explode when mixed together and more than 30 "improvised grenades" that resemble commercially available aerial fireworks shells.
Officers are evaluating the second disarmed explosive with a robot-mounted video camera.
