By NBC News' David Wyllie, Daniel Strieff, Ian Johnston and F. Brinley Bruton
Updated at 6:25 a.m. ET: At
least 14 people were killed early Friday when at least one gunman
opened fire at a midnight screening of the summer blockbuster "The Dark
Knight Rises" near Denver, authorities and witnesses said.
Aurora
police chief Dan Oates told reporters that 10 people died at the scene
and four others died after being taken to local hospitals. At least 50
other people were injured, Oates said.
One suspect was apprehended in the shopping center's parking lot, Oates said.
The incident occurred in the Century 16 Movie Theaters at the Aurora
Town Center, police told NBC News. Aurora is a suburb less than 10 miles
east of downtown Denver.
NBC station KUSA-Denver cited
a witness as seeing a black-clad 6-foot-tall man wearing a riot helmet,
goggles and bullet-proof vest. The witness and her boyfriend crawled to
the emergency exit, KUSA said.
The suspect was found in
possession of a gas mask and two firearms, Oates said. Ammunition was
found in the suspect's car, police said.
At
least 14 people were killed and dozens of others wounded early Friday
in Aurora, Colorado after a gunman opened fire during a midnight
screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" film. Willie Geist talks with
KUSA's Jace Larson
The police chief said there was no evidence of additional shooters.
The
suspect's apartment building in north Aurora was evacuated after the
suspect made a statement to police about possible explosives at his
home, Oates said.
Witnesses told reporters that gunfire erupted during a shootout scene.
Brenda Stuart, of 850 KOA radio,
told Sky News that "a lot of people thought the gunshots were part of the movie."
'I'm in shock'Tear gas also went off in the theater, Stuart said. She added that bullets had passed from one theater into an adjoining one.
One young man told KUSA that he was out front of the theater with friends when the shooting broke out.
"Next
thing you know you hear 'boom' like tear gas, a bomb. ... Then you hear
gunshots go off, like a fully automatic weapon. [There were] like 50-60
gunshots," he told KUSA.
"I was just worried about getting out of there," he told KUSA.
The man, who did not give his name, said he heard gunfire continue for at least 20 minutes.
"People
were coming out of there screaming, some of the people were coming out
of there bleeding. ... People were coming out with their shirts covered
in blood," he said.
As
he left the theater, eyewitness Hayden Miller told KUSA said people
ran up to him and said "there was a gunman setting off bombs and
shooting people. ... He wasn't giving anyone a chance to get out ... It
hasn't really hit me. I’m in shock. it’s insane that this can happen in
a movie theater where people had gone to have fun."
Another
eyewitness, whose name was not given, told KUSA that he "saw at least 4,
maybe 5 people limping, slightly wounded. ... I saw one girl covered in
blood.
"I don’t know whose little girl that was, but my heart
goes out to them. ... A cop came walking through the front door ...
holding a little girl in his arms and she wasn't moving, she wasn't
moving," the young man, whose voiced cracked as he spoke, told KUSA.
The Denver Post quoted witness, Bejamin Fernandez, 30, as saying that people ran from the theater as shots rang out.
Fernandez told the Post that he saw people falling, including one young girl.
9News
Police officers converge at the scene of a mass shooting in Aurora, Colo., early Friday.
Jordan told the newspaper she saw police carrying bodies out of the theater as well as officers opening fire.
More on this story from breakingnews.com
Local emergency crews from several cities, including Denver and Boulder, converged on the scene, Stuart told Sky News.
Cathy
Canzanora, a 911 dispatcher, told NBC News that emergency dispatchers
were deluged with calls from "everybody who had cellphones in the
theater" at 12:39 a.m. Friday local time (2:39 a.m. ET).
The
dispatcher said she could not reveal what people told her but said that
they reported "that there had been a shooting so we got the police and
the fire department and the ambulance there as soon as they could."
Further local coverage from NBC station KUSA-Denver
Police cars transport the woundedThe injured were being transported to several local hospitals, police told NBC.
KOA's Stuart said that police officers were taking victims to hospitals in their cars and not waiting for ambulances.
Justin
Bentzinger, a house supervisor at the Swedish Medical Center, told NBC
News they were treating three patients. Two were in critical condition,
the third was in fair condition.
Kalena Wilkinson, a public
information officer for Denver Health, said six patients were taken to
that hospital, with one in a critical condition and the other five in "
fair" conditions.
Tracy Weise, of the public relations department
at Aurora Medical Center, told NBC News they were treating 12 patients
with a range of injuries from minor to critical.
"We have a variety of ages, quite a few 20s, teenagers, that kind of age," she said.
Jacque
Montgomery, a spokesperson for University of Colorado Hospital, told
NBC News that they were treating 20 patients from the shooting.
"Injuries range from minor to severe gunshot injuries," she said.
"The majority are adults. ... I know we have a handful of teenagers," Montgomery added.
Hundreds of witnesses who have not been injured have been taken to Gateway High School for a debriefing, local media reported.
"The
Dark Knight Rises," starring Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway, is the
latest in the popular Batman action movie franchise. Friday was its
international premiere.
