Batman cinema shooting: Grieving another horrifying act of terror

Editorial:

For the second time in little more than a decade, metro Denver has been convulsed by a mass murder of calculated and methodical viciousness, an act so pointless and incomprehensible that it leaves us all shaken and bewildered. As was the case in 1999 with Columbine, our hearts and thoughts go out to the families of the dead victims at the Aurora theater shootings — many of whom no doubt were young — as well as to those who survived but who remain injured or maimed in local hospitals. It is probably too early to read any deep lessons into Friday morning's brutal attack. Although much has been learned in the past 24 hours about the alleged perpetrator, James Eagan Holmes, we still don't know enough about his mental state and his motives to say whether he had dropped signs along the way and might have been thwarted. But as recent history has shown, killers willing to forfeit their own lives — or at least their freedom — are extremely difficult to stop unless they make a clumsy mistake in the run-up to the crime. It is fairly safe to say this much about the killer's overarching purpose, though: He clearly planned the massacre in such a way as to evoke the maximum amount of publicity. His theatrical final entrance to "The Dark Knight Rises," as well as his phony, flashy machismo and his black ballistic garb — indeed, the entire life-imitating-art scenario that the shooter choreographed — all point to someone shouting for the public's attention. If it weren't part of our job as journalists, we would hesitate even to mention his name and thereby ratify his intentions. But we have no choice. Plus, the suspect is still alive, and eventually will no doubt be tried in open court. Aurorans and in fact all residents of the metro area can at least take heart that the performance of their first responders — from police to firefighters and emergency medical personnel — as well as the staff in area hospitals, was prompt, efficient and utterly professional. The fact that police were on the scene at the Century 16 theater complex within 60 to 90 seconds from the moment 911 calls started pouring in, according to Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates, is itself something of a marvel. Within minutes, 25 officers had arrived, he added. Soon, nearly 200 officers would converge on the chaos, a number of them pitching in to transport the wounded to hospitals. Some observers are probably going to wonder whether Colorado is especially prone to incubate murderous madmen — for lack of a better description — who seek out innocent targets in public venues given the array of incidents in recent years. Since 2006 alone, we've seen a 53-year-old drifter take six female students hostage at Platte Canyon High School, killing one before he killed himself; a troubled 24-year-old shoot two parishioners at New Life Church in Colorado Springs after having killed two other people the night before at a training center for Christian missionaries in Arvada; and a 32-year-old open fire on students at Dear Creek middle school in Jefferson County before seventh-grade math teacher David Benke tackled and subdued him. We suspect these incidents say more about modern reality, however, than they do about Colorado. Sick, cruel or desperate people nursing grievances have taken to seeking some sort of bizarre fulfillment in public acts of terror, scripting their final acts for maximum impact. Undoubtedly those who commit such crimes are aware to some extent of previous incidents. Does that then qualify them as copycat tragedies? And if it does, how in today's media-saturated world, in which every man, woman and child can reach thousands of people instantly through social media, could such knowledge ever be bottled up anyway? In the days ahead, we will undoubtedly hear some pundits suggest that it is too easy to access weapons and body armor. Or that too many of us have been desensitized to violence by modern popular culture. Others will argue that the social networks that traditionally might have offered support have been badly frayed or lost altogether. These and many other issues are of course worth addressing. In the present moment, however, Colorado and the nation are focused mainly on grieving over yet another mass shooting that has destroyed so many hopes and dreams. Read more: Editorial: Grieving another horrifying act of terror - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_21120516/editorial-grieving-another-horrifying-act-terror#ixzz21NAtAYLy Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse