July 2012

By Vincent Del Giudice, James Nash and Jennifer Oldham

July 21 (Bloomberg) — Police and FBI agents in Aurora, Colorado, used a robot to disarm a tripwire and clear bombs from the apartment of James Holmes, the suspect in a shooting that killed 12, wounded 58 and turned a suburban theater into a death house.

The FBI sent equipment and technicians from Quantico, Virginia, to disarm explosive and incendiary devices without ruining evidence, said James Yacone, special agent in charge, at a news conference today.

The “skillfully driven” robot had to neutralize an oxidizing agent and fuel just inside the door, then an improvised explosive device, additional triggering mechanisms, wires and fuses, he said. Agents were still at work, he said.

“This apartment was designed to kill anyone who entered it,” said Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates. “If you think we’re angry, sure as hell we’re angry.”

About 11:40 a.m. local time, a fire truck raised its bucket to a window of the apartment, which is adjacent to a grammar school. Two helmeted bomb squad members placed a device inside. The bucket retracted, a fire engine blasted its horn three times and the explosion went off, sending debris flying from the window into a parking lot.

The shootings about 12:30 a.m. July 20, about a half-hour into a showing of the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises” wounded 58 people in the Denver suburb. The rampage was the deadliest shooting in Colorado since the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999 and the worst mass shooting in the U.S. since November 2009, when 13 people were killed at Fort Hood in Texas.