July 20, 2012
People all over America were gearing up in their Batman tee's for the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. Meanwhile James Holmes was gearing up to wreak havoc on those unsuspecting movie goers.
There's a lot that can be said about this case. There's a lot I don't totally agree with and there's a lot that leaves me scratching my head as to why more wasn't done to protect the community and protect James Holmes from himself. Now before you guys start saying, "BUT JESSICA, HE WAS A MASS MURDERER," let me explain. James Holmes was in most ways your average guy, a bit misunderstood, sure. But overall, he never stood out. When he began seeing a psychotherapist in college, she became concerned that he would hurt someone, not necessarily a whole crowd of people, but she definitely knew what he was capable of. Which is why it drives me absolutely CRAZY that more wasn't done to help James Holmes after he intentionally flunked out of grad school.
James Holmes had this human capital ideology that if he could take other people's lives, it would more or less, reduce his apparent suicidal ideation. Now I'm paraphrasing there, because his idea was based on a point system for each life he took but the points didn't actually do anything. But the overall gist of his explanation was that it calmed his anxiety. Which brings to me agree with Dr. William H. Reid, the author of this book. James Holmes plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but that mean he had to have been impaired at the time of the crime. Giving the amount of planning he put into purchasing guns, stockpiling ammo, ordering cans of tear gas and ballistic gear, along with researching how to make bombs (which he used to rig his apartment to explode), there's no way he was impaired while following out his mission to commit mass murder.
He expected his psychotherapist to be able to read his mind. He never gave her specific details, he never let on that he might actually commit murder, he never told her when he began buying weapons, but he expected her to be able to stop him when the night of his "mission" came. He even went so far as to write everything out in his notebook and mail it to her in the hopes that she might be able to use his story to predict the next mass killer she encounters.
This book had me questioning so many things, like how could he buy over 6000 rounds of ammunition in a matter of weeks and no one was concerned in the least. How was he able to purchase guns when he had a severe mental condition? How did the police mistake him for another officer when they arrested him? How has life treated him so poorly that he felt the need to commit mass murder just to calm his anxiety?
There's so many questions I could ask, but the truth is we can only speculate the "why" behind this happening.
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