security, as friends and family of the alleged shooter, james holmes, asks how could he do such a thing? and as they search for clues in one of the nation s worse ever mass shootings, authorities are carefully trying to enter his booby-trapped apartment today, saturday, july 21st, 2012. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and welcome to a special edition of today on this saturday morning. good morning. i m savannah guthrie here in aurora, colorado. lester is on assignment this morning in london, and jenna wolfe is back in studeio 1a in new york. jenna, good morning to you. savannah, good morning to you. it s now been 24 hours since the shooting. can you tell us a little bit about what the mood is like over there? jenna, this is a town that is in a shared heartbreak right now. people will just so stunned that another mass shooting could happen in the denver area, of course, 13 years after the shooting at nearby columbine high school, which is only about 50 mi
holmes? reporter: i talked to two folks who had and met him several times at the zephyr lounge, a bar down the street. one gentleman, jackie mitchell, is a furniture mover and he said tuesday he walked into the bar after work. they were having a happy hour special. he saw james sitting there with a backpack and a friendly look on his face. they started talking and shared a couple of beers on the happy hour special. he said james was relaxed, calm, friendly. they were talking about football and the denver broncos, how many touchdown passes peyton manning would throw this year. nothing at all more disturbing. stephanie simon with reuters. thank you very much for that. reporter: thank you. bye-bye. one of the people killed in the shooting was an aspiring sports caster who barely escaped a mass shooting at a mall in toronto last month. her name is jessica ghawi.
copy, we ll notify fire, seven down in theater nine. give me some officers in nine so we can get the, the movable victims out. according to scanner traffic, holmes was spotted around 12:45 a.m. he was arrested shortly there after in the parking lot behind the theater. still wearing a bulletproof vest, helmet and gas mask. four weapons were recovered at the scene. they were all purchased legally over the last six months. they include an ar-15 assault rifle, which was left behind in the theater. investigators found a drum magazine capable of carrying 100 rounds. which suggest that the suspect was aiming for a high body count. they also found a .40 caliber glock handgun. it had a clip though the size of the magazine is unknown. a remington 870 shotgun that cab hold up to seven rounds. now, let s send it out to don lemon in aurora, colorado. don, what can you tell us about the suspect? what was he wearing, what did he look like? i m going to talk to ed lavandera about tha
it includes five buildings in the area being evacuated. we have been asked how many folks were in the theater. we can tell you there were four showings of the batman movie. all of them were sold out. we have interviewed close to 200 witnesses. as to how many people were in the theater, that s the best i can tell you. caution about social media. please, as responsible journalists, be careful. we are analyzing all social media that is out there about this event. i can tell you that we are already finding that there are a lot of pranks. there is even someone who called a national media station and represented to be me. our colleagues in the adjoining mall have closed the mall for the day out of the cooperation and spirit of cooperation with our investigation. with that i would like to introduce district attorney carol chambers to make some remarks. then special agent in charge yacom will make remarks and i will take some questions. good morning. i first want to emphasize what
tonight. we re going to take you out to the scene with don lemon in a second but first let s get you up to speed. breaking news in aurora, colorado, in that movie theater shooting massacre that went down less than 24 hours ago. the largest mass shooting ever in the united states. it has shate shaken that commund stunned the country. and the world watches. at this very moment. as they ve been all day. officers with the bomb squad wearing tactical gear are surrounding what they re calling the booby trapped apartment of the accused gunman. trying not to blow up themselves and an entire neighborhood. right now we re learning a lot more about the young man who police say not only rigged that apartment with explosives but in cold blood murdered 12 people and injured 59 more. they were mothers. fathers. children. u.s. troops and students. enjoying the midnight showing of the latest batman movie the dark knight rises. when this man, james eagan holmes, dressed in riot gear, burst i