DELUSIONAL, or evil?
- As authorities are investigating the shooting rampage at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" details are emerging about James Holmes, the 24-year-old who allegedly donned riot gear and stalked the aisles with a rifle.
- Psychology experts say it's hard to know what Holmes's state of mind was before his alleged rampage, but emerging details suggest he was a deeply disturbed individual.
- "He said he was the Joker," one law enforcement official told ABC News, referring to a villain from the Batman series. New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the suspect had dyed his hair red to match the character's.
- Witnesses said a shooter entered the movie theater about 20 or 30 minutes into the film, dressed in a riot helmet, bulletproof vest and a gas mask, and carrying a rifle and a handgun. He set off what's been reported as a smoke bomb, then began methodically stalking the aisles, shooting patrons at random as some tried to flee.
- Authorities report that 12 people were killed and nearly 50 were injured. Holmes was arrested in the parking lot of the movie theater, looking like "a villain in a movie," a Congressional official briefed on the situation told ABC News. His apartment is filled with explosives and being searched by Hazmat teams.
- "This is not a person that gets in bar fights and hurts other people," said Dr. Stevan Hobfoll, a professor of behavioral sciences at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "They're more likely to make statements about how they're going to get people. Those people are going to see they'll know who he is, and they'll be sorry."
- "In general, these people tend to be socially inept and alienated from the mainstream," said Dr. Felipe Amunategui, an associate training director for child and adolescent psychiatry at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland.
- Psychologists said shooters who go on rampages, targeting random people with no apparent motive, may or may not have a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia. Rather, Holmes was likely living in a world of an alternate reality, suffering from delusions of threats and making plans to make right things that he perceived were wrong.
- "The thing to realize is that within his own thoughts, what he was doing was completely logical. To him, he was accomplishing something worth doing," said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Va.
- Amunategui said it's likely that Holmes had been obsessively thinking about his plan until some unknown event spurred him to action.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/james-holmes-alleged-colorado-batman-shooter-delusional-psychologists/story?id=16821836#.UXFE8IletPs