Colorado Gunman Kills 12 in Crowded Theater

A gunman wearing a bullet-proof vest opened fire in a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colo., during a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" last night. At least 12 people were killed and as many as 50 others are being treated for injuries. The suspect is a 24-year-old male who entered the theater through an emergency door that had been propped open. He was reportedly wearing riot gear and threw a tear-gas canister into the theater before opening fire with an automatic weapon. He was apprehended in the parking lot of the shopping center where the theater is located and is in police custody.

Aurora, a Denver suburb, is about 13 miles from Littleton, Colo., site of the April 1999 Columbine High School massacre in which teenage students Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before killing themselves. 

Read about how Virginia psychiatrists responded to the more recent mass shooting at Virginia Tech University in 2007, in Psychiatric News, here. 

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