A hostage situation at a townhome in Aurora, Colorado — the city where James Holmes opened fire during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises this summer — ended with four people dead, including the suspected gunman. Colorado police say 40 officers and a SWAT team were called to the scene at around 3 a.m. on Saturday after a woman escaped the house and alerted the authorities to the situation taking place inside. After an initial exchange of gunfire, the police tried for hours to negotiate with the suspect, who answered the phone several times, though his conversations were “not making sense,” according to a police spokeswoman. A neighbor told the Denver Post that she overheard the cops addressing the gunman, who they referred to as “Sonny,” over a bullhorn: “We know you’ve been up for four days. What’s done is done. Come out and we’ll get you some help.”
Unfortunately, any chance for a resolution broke down at around 8:20 a.m., when the police shot tear gas into the house. Shortly after, the suspect appeared in a second-story window and again began shooting at the cops, who returned fire and killed him. When the officers entered the building, they discovered the bodies of two men and one woman, who had apparently been killed before the shootout. A police spokeswoman says that the relationship between the shooter and his victims was not yet known, but that it was possible that they were all from the same family. Another neighbor said that she believed that the suspect was a meth user, and added that “there was all kinds of commotion at that house.”
This post has been updated throughout.
