How did the police find the traps in his apartment?
Wouldn’t the first thing be opening the front door … and boom?
I believe he told them it was rigged. Why, I can’t understand. Maybe his conscience caught up with him.
According to the media he warned them about explosives in his apartment when he was arrested but even if he didn’t, why would you expect law enforcement to just barge in to the apartment of a man who did something like that? Would you? I wouldn’t. And you don`t even have the combined training of the several hundred law enforcement officers who were on the scene.
Ahh - there we go. I couldn’t find anything about this, and it’s puzzled me, until now. Most of the news stories now are focusing on the de-arming of his apartment.
I don’t know. Is there some sort of protocol for handling the homes of mass killers :dubious:?
That link might change over time like many news sites do, but that’s what it says now.
I’m getting the feeling that the movie about this incident is going to be more over-the-top than the Batman movie.
Someone on this Board awhile back said, “The reason that truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction has to make sense.”
I’ll never forget that line.
so what do you all speculate was his motivation to go to such great lengths to trap the apt then just blow it by telling them? (i’m dismissing the “his conscious caught up to him” comment because he defiantly told the police he was “the joker” after the killing–he clearly lacks an moral center and is crazy).
someone argued he told them so they could take note of how genius his trappings were. that if he let them all detonate, no one would see how brilliantly rigged it all was.
but he also set a timer to blare techno music after he left and kept the door unlocked–a neighbor nearly entered to complain to him after realizing the door was unlocked but she didn’t open it.
this might be akin to figuring out why a headless chicken darts more often to the right than the left, but you’re the smartest people i know so i wondered what you might think.
He is crazy.
i mean, yeah–it seems to be the easy diagnosis. but they guy was kind of a brainiac, one scholarships and in prestigious programs and all else. can you be totally crazy but still successful in higher-minded pursuits?
what’s more, once the news broke and someone speculated it might be him (james holmes), his mother is quoted as saying “it was def. him. he was certainly involved. i need to talk to the police. i need to fly to colorado.”
something about him seems to have lead her to believe he was certainly capable of this despicable act, which has me super curious.
Ted Kaczynski, attended Harvard, PhD in mathematics, university professor, totally crazy.
If you believe the news reports, he also believes he’s the Joker or in a movie or something. He’s a little deranged, I’m sure. For all I know he’s pretending to be more deranged than he is.
But to answer the OP, yes, he told the officers his place was booby-trapped. They blocked off the whole area, evacuated citizens, and sent cameras and robots in there via his window.
Yeah, generally these types of people are perfectly functional until they go nuts later in life. Ted Kaczynski got his Ph.D. and taught for a couple years before moving into the mountains and becoming a hermit and blowing people up. This guy was apparently an excellent student before washing out of his grad program and then shooting up a theater.
Schizophrenia and other mental illnesses often start to develop in the mid-20s, so people with otherwise normal health histories can go pretty crazy relatively quickly.
I’m not questioning the veracity of your post but can you provide a cite? The link provided by one of the posters in this thread doesn’t mention techno music; seems as if news outlets only like to provide fragments of the news! I’m completely clueless on the details of his apartment (hence my OP).
Most likely he wanted the police to know how smart and special he was, so he let slip the detail that there were booby traps. Crooks, smart or stupid, sane or not, generally can’t keep their trap shut - they have to tell someone. They’re bursting to boast. Maybe he figured they’d already be set off by the neighbours with the loud music as bait.
Yep. See John Forbes Nash, Jr: Nobel Prize winning mathematician and full blown paranoid schizophrenic.
I hasten to add that, unlike Holmes or the previously mentioned Ted Kaczynski, Mr. Nash has never hurt anyone or planned mass violence and is arguably more typical of the academically successful batshit crazy person.
is schizophrenia commonly associated with lucid, meticulous mass violence?
*that is a real question. i have no experience w it. i don’t know if that’s a common trait or even if that is a common “crazy” diagnosis of many serial killers.
“Lucid, meticulous mass murder” is rare so it’s not really associated with a particular mental state.
While disordered thinking and poor planning is a feature of many mental illnesses/dysfunctions it’s not universal. Nash, for example, was able to use his formidable intellect to overcome some of the problems of his condition. Holmes might have an intellect sufficient to do the same.
For the most part, schizophrenics are FAR more likely to injure or kill *themselves *than other people, either intentionally or unintentionally. Then can be scary because they’re aren’t acting normal but most of them are relatively harmless, or at least no more dangerous than the average person.
I will also point out that we do not, in fact, know that Holmes is “schizophrenic” or [insert name of disorder here]. That is pure speculation at this point. There are other mental disorders that arguably are more likely to result in this sort of incident than schizophrenia.
That’s how Jeff Daniels got killed in Speed.
It’s possible that he didn’t tell them tell them, but instead just let slip enough information to cause the police to infer that his home was dangerous. Something like: “You may think you’ve caught the Joker, but I’ll keep killing from afar! Oho, you’re going to enter the Joker’s Ha-Hacienda, are you? Watch that first step; it’s a doozy! Hahahahahaha!”