New Jersey supermarket shooting leaves 3 dead, including gunman

A law enforcement official says at least three people have died in a shooting at a New Jersey supermarket.

Empire State Building shootings kill 2 and wound 8, police say

A recently laid-off store worker shot a former colleague to death Friday morning outside New York's iconic Empire State Building before being killed by police, police said. Nine others were hit by gunfire in the confrontation, but police said all were expected to survive.

Several people shot outside Empire State Building

The scene from above the Empire State Building this morning

New York City officials say several people have been shot outside the Empire State Building and that the gunman is dead.

Three dead, including gunman, in Texas university shooting: Police

A gunman and a law enforcement officer were among three people killed Monday in a shooting near a Texas university campus, police said.

A male civilian also was killed, while two other officers and a woman were injured in the shooting near Texas A&M University at College Station, said Bryan Police Department spokesman Jon Agnew. Bryan police are assisting nearby College Station in the investigation. Assistant College Station Police Chief Scott McCollum earlier identified the law enforcement officer killed as Brazos County Constable Brian Bachmann.

Agnew said officers had established a perimeter around the area shortly after the shooting just east of campus, but they do not believe a second suspect was involved. He said police don’t know if the shooter was a student at Texas A&M.

The school had issued an alert on its website just before 12:30 p.m. warning of an active shooter near the campus football stadium, Kyle Field.

The gunman fired shots from inside a home about two blocks from the campus, according to the university’s alert. “We have been told to stay put,” said Keith Randall, a Texas A&M employee who was in his office. “They just asked us to stay where we are.” The alert warned residents and students to avoid the area, and was later updated with the shooter taken into custody.

Texas A&M spokeswoman Sherylon Carroll could not confirm details about the shooting, but said most students were not on campus Monday. The fall semester does not begin until Aug. 27. “It appeared to be fairly quiet,” Carroll said of campus. “It didn’t appear to be a lot of people out and about at that particular time.”

College Station is about 145 kilometres northwest of Houston. Texas A&M is home to more than 50,000 students, according to its website.

With files from Star wire services

Multiple people shot at Texas university campus

COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS—Multiple people, including law enforcement officers, were shot on Monday after a gunman opened fire near Texas A&M University, police in College Station, Texas, said.

“We have multiple people who have been shot,” police spokeswoman Rhonda Seaton told CNN, adding that law enforcement officers had also been shot.

The extent of the injuries was not immediately clear. According to the university’s website, police had the shooting suspect in custody near its campus in College Station.

The university issued an alert on its website just before 12:30 p.m. Monday warning of an active shooter near the campus football stadium, Kyle Field. The warning tells residents and students to avoid the area.

Seaton says the shooting happened within a block or two of campus sometime before 12:45 p.m. She says police have one suspect in custody.

College Station lies northwest of Houston.

Seven dead in shooting at Wisconsin Sikh temple

Police officials in the northern state of Wisconsin say at least seven people were killed in a shooting at a Sikh temple in a suburb of Milwaukee. A police officer responding to the shooting was wounded in an exchange with the gunman, who is among the dead.

The Dark Knight Rises Shooting in Colorado (My Reaction)

First of all, I'll like to say my heart goes out to all the people affected in the town of Aurora, Colorado, may God be with that town and their families. Across the country last night, after months of anticipation, sold out crowds filled movie theaters to take in the midnight premiere of the latest Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises." But the thrill of the movie's release has been utterly dashed in the wake of the horrific shootings during a screening in Aurora, Colo., in which a lone gunman opened fire on the audience, shooting some 50 people, 12 fatally, authorities say. At this point we know very little about the suspect in the shooting, James Holmes, 24, an Aurora resident. 


The Aurora Police Department released one statement earlier today, but it did not contain any information about a possible motive for the shooting or any indication of what Holmes has told police so far, if anything. Reports say Holmes's only previous run-in with the law was a traffic ticket in 2011.

Inevitably, speculation has run rampant about the suspected shooter's mental health. But one expert warns of making pronouncements until we know more. "It's really preliminary, and at this point it's hard to know what's behind [the shooting]," says Alan Manevitz, M.D., a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City and an attending physician at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Manevitz says while attempts have been made in the past to create a profile that would help us identify potential rampaging gunmen, there simply isn't one. "In the past we've seen people come from well-adjusted and well-to-do families, as well as from broken homes," he says. "Some are loners and some have had friends. No one shooter fits a definitive psychological profile." In Holmes's case, Manevitz wonders if the young man has a previous psychological history or a history of threats, violence or psychotic thinking. "We don't know any of that at this point."

The mass shooting at a Colorado movie theater has prompted the cancellation of the Paris premiere of the Dark Knight Rises, and has raised questions about how moviegoers will react in the wake of the violence. I'm an avid movie-goer, and really affects me. I still find it hard to understand the motivation behind such an attack. I always felt comfortable and safe in the theater while watching a movie, but now I know my thoughts will stray every so often to the incident in Colorado and think about how scared those people were.  A suburban movie theater is a place people are supposed to be able to feel safe and it seems like the typical reaction to a mass shooting in a public place is to tighten security where these kinds of things happen. And now it seems like you can't go anywhere in the states without a security check, does that have any effect on how we interact with each other? I believe it does, especially in terms of meeting new people and socializing at parties/schools because you don't know who out there is a "psychopath"

There has been a lot of shooting incidents in our society these days and I personally believe gun control in any nation is the right way to go. No guns should be allowed for any reason in our society. We are not a 'free' society if we allow our neighbors to collect weapons and use them at will, we are a stupid society.

Obama: Such evil is senseless

At a campaign event in Florida, President Obama comments on the deadly movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

Shooting victim just missed Eaton Centre gunfire

One of the victims of the Colorado movie theatre shooting narrowly missed witnessing another shooting — in the food court at Toronto's Eaton Centre last month.

News of the shooting at The Dark Knight Rises premiere first broke on Twitter early Friday morning from panicked moviegoers trying to make sense of what they'd just experienced.

And as the morning wore on and the police investigation continued, the name of one of the victims appeared on Twitter.

"My friend Jessica Ghawi was killed in the #Aurora Shooting — she was an aspiring sportscaster — she will be missed," Natalie Tejeda (@natalietejeda) tweeted Friday morning.

Ghawi's parents told KSAT-TV in San Antonio, Texas, that their daughter, who had recently moved to Denver, was killed in the shooting, the station reported.

Ghawi's brother Jordan wrote on his blog that their mutual friend, who was with Ghawi at the theatre, said Ghawi was shot twice, and the second bullet "appeared to strike her in the head."

Ghawi, who went by the Twitter handle @JessicaRedfield, last tweeted "MOVIE DOESN'T START FOR 20 MINUTES," just after 10:30 p.m. local time to another Twitter user whom she'd been teasing for not going to the premiere.

And in an eerie coincidence, Ghawi's last entry on her personal blog was about witnessing the aftermath of the shooting in the Eaton Centre on June 2.

Busted Coverage, a sports blog Ghawi wrote for, tweeted a link to her last blog post.

She had been at the Eaton Centre and grabbed a burger and poutine in the food court. She had initially been looking for sushi — which would have led her to the sit-down sushi restaurant and prolonged her time in the food court — but "an odd feeling" led her outside, she wrote.

"Gun crimes are fairly common where I grew up in Texas, but I never imagined I'd experience a violent crime first hand," she wrote on June 5.

The receipt for her burger was time-stamped 6:20 p.m. Gunshots rang out in the food court only minutes later.

Outside the mall, chaos descended on the streets as emergency vehicles arrived on scene.

"Standing there in the midst of the chaos all around us, police started yelling to get back and make room. I saw a young shirtless boy, writhing on a stretcher, with his face and head covered by the EMS as they rushed him by us to get him into an ambulance," Ghawi wrote. "The moment was surprisingly calm. The EMTs helping the boy weren't yelling orders and no one was screaming like a night time medical drama. It was as if it was one swift movement to get the boy out of the mall and into the ambulance. That's when it really hit me. I felt nauseous. Who would go into a mall full of thousands of innocent people and open fire? Is this really the world we live in?"

"I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday," she wrote a few days after the shooting. "I was reminded that we don't know when or where our time on Earth will end."

culled from ifpress.com

James Holmes suspected in Colorado theatre shooting rampage

Police break a window of the apartment where the suspect in the shooting at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colo., lived.

WASHINGTON—U.S. law enforcement officials say the suspect in Friday’s deadly shooting in a Colorado movie theatre is James Holmes, a 24-year-old white American.

Officials believe Holmes killed a dozen people when he fired into a crowded movie theatre in a Denver suburb. He was wearing a gas mask and set off an unknown gas in the theatre.

The Defence Department says Holmes never served in the Army.

Holmes is in police custody, and the FBI says there is no indication the incident is tied to any terrorist groups.

The federal law enforcement officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Colorado theatre shooting: 14 dead after gunman opens fire on ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ audience

AURORA, COLO.—A gunman wearing a gas mask opened fire early Friday at a suburban Denver movie theatre on the opening night of the latest Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12 people and injuring at least 50 others, authorities said.

The gunman, who is in custody, stood at the front of the theatre and fired into the crowd about 12:30 a.m. MDT at a theatre at a multiplex theatre in a mall in Aurora.

“Witnesses tell us he released some sort of canister. They heard a hissing sound and some gas emerged and the gunman opened fire,” Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said at a news conference.

Police, ambulances and emergency crews swarmed on the scene after frantic calls started flooding the 911 switchboard, officials said.

Officers found the gunman near a car behind the theatre.

Police have identified the suspect as James Holmes, 24. There was no immediate word of any motive.

When the suspect was arrested, police recovered one rifle, one handgun and a gas mask. A third gun is still inside the theatre, police said in a statement.

The suspect spoke of “possible explosives in his residence,” Oates said. Police used a crane to hoist themselves up to an apartment window on the third floor at the top of the brick complex and break in.

He said police also checked for explosives in the parking lot and at the Century 16 theatre and secured those areas.

Police spokesman Frank Fania said the suspect was carrying a knife, a rifle and a handgun when arrested, and one other gun is still in the theatre. The gunman was also wearing a bulletproof vest.

“He did not resist, he did not put up a fight,” Fania said. The suspect's apartment building has been evacuated.

Salina Jordan, 19, was in Theater 8 and saw people hit in her theatre. She told the Denver Post one girl was struck in the cheek, others in the stomach, including a girl who looked to be around 9 years old.

Jordan said it sounded like firecrackers until someone ran into Theater 8 yelling “they're shooting out here!”

The police came running in, telling people to run out. Some police were carrying or dragging bodies, she said.

Witness Hayden Miller told KUSA-TV that he was inside Theater 16 and heard several shots.

“Like little explosions going on and shortly after that we heard people screaming,” he told the station.

Hayden said at first he thought it was part of a louder movie next door. But then he saw “people hunched over leaving theatre.”

Moviegoers didn't know what was happening and some thought the attack was part of the show. Then they saw a silhouette of a person in the smoke at the front of the theatre near the screen, pointing a gun at the crowd.

“I told my friend 'we've got to get out of here,' but then he shot people trying to go out the exits,” Jennifer Seeger told NBC's “Today.” She said the shooter made his way up the aisle, shooting as he went, saying nothing.

Another witness told CNN: “We heard anywhere from 10 to 20 shots and little explosions going on. Shortly after that we heard people screaming. Then they came on PA system and said everyone needed to get out.

“As soon as we got out, there were people running around and screaming.”

Another witness said the gunman opened fire during a shoot-out scene in the movie, leading to confusion. The theatre also filled with thick smoke, he said.

The police chief said 10 victims died at the theatre and two at area hospitals.

Two people in critical condition were rushed to nearby Swedish Medical Center, spokeswoman Nicole Williams said.

She said emergency crews told her staff to prepare for several more patients from the shooting scene.

Nine people were in critical condition at University Hospital, TV station KCNC reported. Many were in surgery.

Eleven people were being treated at the Medical Center of Aurora for gunshots and ranged from minor to critical condition. Two others walked in to be treated for tear gas contamination.

Denver Health had seven victims — one in critical and the rest in fair condition.

The youngest victim reported was a 6-year-old being treated at Children’s Hospital Colorado, where a total of six victims were taken. Their condition wasn’t known.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he was “shocked and saddened” by the massacre.

“We are committed to bringing whoever was responsible to justice, ensuring the safety of our people, and caring for those who have been wounded. As we do when confronted by moments of darkness and challenge, we must now come together as one American family,” Obama said in a statement.

Aurora is located on the southeast outskirts of Denver, about 16 kilometres from downtown.

With files from Reuters

Video: Witness recalls the theatre shooting: