Thought it was all a stunt ..

  TANNER Coon first saw a canister that trailed smoke being flung across the heads of the people in front of him.





Through the smoky gloom, he could see a nightmarish figure wearing a mask.
Tanner, 17, felt sure it was a stunt to celebrate the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, which was premiering across consecutive screens in Century 16 cinemas after midnight on Friday in Aurora, east of Denver.
He heard a single shot, which broke into rapid fire.

"I knew it was a gun," Tanner said. "I said to my two friends, 'Get on the ground', and then there was 20, maybe 30, shots fired."

Tom Sullivan embraces family members outside the Colorado cinema where he had been searching for son Alex, who was later confirmed dead. Picture: AP Source: Herald Sun

Tanner was with his younger friends on the upper right-hand side of the theatre. He pushed them to the ground, but panic set in.

People were screaming, gas was burning eyes and causing chaos. He knew they had to get out.

"I walked and slipped and fell on blood," he said.

"I landed on a lady. I shook the lady, I said, 'Come on, get up, we got to get out'. She didn't move. I assumed she was dead."

Twelve people are dead and up to 58 people injured, some of them critically, after James Egan Holmes, 24, plunged a nation into mourning as it again confronted the spectre of a massacre from powerful, legally obtained weapons.

An investigator examines evidence. Picture: AP Source: Herald Sun

Holmes, who told police he was "the Joker", came in through an exit door at the lower right-hand side of the cinema and tried to slaughter as many cinema-goers - most young, and many dressed in Batman costumes - as he could.

Dressed in black, he wore a riot helmet, a gas mask, a bulletproof vest, throat and groin shields, and tactical gloves.
He was armed with a semi-automatic AR-15 assault-style rifle, two .40-calibre Glock handguns, a Remington shotgun, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and teargas.

Marcus Weaver, 41, who was in Theatre 9 where the rampage played out, was back at the scene on Friday evening, US time, desperate for word about his close friend, Rebecca Wingo.
Mr Weaver had gone to the screening with Ms Wingo, a single mother of two young children who was ecstatic to get a rare break from her children.

"The first image I saw of him, he shot at almost the front row and it hit a bar and there were sparks," Mr Weaver said.

He said he noticed Rebecca was not moving: "She was unconscious, I pushed her down."
But then came the panic and he ran.
The fear is that Rebecca is one of the 10 people who last night were yet to be removed from Theatre 9.

Source : Sydney News Australia