‘Batman killer made threats weeks before cinema attack’

Batman shooting suspect James Holmes made threats that were reported to police six weeks before his gun rampage in a Colorado cinema, a court heard today.

He had been banned from his college after making the threats and failing an important exam, prosecutors said.

Holmes, a neuroscience graduate, is accused of opening fire on July 20 at a midnight screening of Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises in the suburb of Aurora, killing 12 and wounding 58.

He had bought thousands of rounds of ammunition and booby-trapped his home with explosives.

The threats reported to police emerged as part of efforts to convince a judge to allow the prosecution access to 100 pages of education records from the University of Colorado where Holmes had been a doctoral candidate.

Prosecutor Karen Pearson argued that the school records, which could include transcripts and class schedules, are key to understanding Holmes’s state of mind leading up to the attack. She added: “All of this is relevant to his decision to withdraw from school, booby-trap his apartment and buy ammunition.”

Prosecutors say they also need the university documents to gain access to a notebook reportedly containing violent descriptions of an attack. The notebook was in a package sent to university psychiatrist Lynne Fenton. At the hearing in Centennial, Colorado, Ms Pearson did not elaborate on the nature of the threats. She portrayed Holmes as a young man whose record at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus was in tatters, saying he had failed oral exams in early June.

She said it was then that he started making threats and he was barred from university facilities.

University spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said Holmes was not banned from the campus but that withdrawing students typically have their access badges deactivated, effectively denying them access to facilities such as laboratories.

Defence lawyer Daniel King objected to the release of the records, calling the prosecution’s request a “fishing expedition that needs to be stopped”.

Holmes has not issued a plea and is being held without bail at the Arapahoe County jail. He appeared more engaged in the hearing than previous court appearances. His walk was more deliberate when he came into the courtroom. Rather than staring blankly ahead, he looked at the judge during most of the submissions.

The hearing continues.