CENTENNIAL — The man Dion Rosborough saw standing in the corner of the theater was moving closer.
Slumped over a person who wasn’t moving, Rosborough could hear the spurts of gunshots coming faster, but the steps of the man walking toward him remained paced and calm. Rosborough looked down to nudge the person beneath him in their row of seats to see whether the person would move.
When he looked up, the man was so close that Rosborough could see his gas mask and the gun he was firing into the crowd.
“I thought to myself, ‘I’m about to be shot,’ ” Rosborough said Thursday. “That’s when I covered my face and he shot me.”
Rosborough’s testimony marked the end of the third week of the Aurora movie theater shooting trial. Prosecutors called a mix of witnesses — from law enforcement to a Google employee — in the trial of James Holmes, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to 166 counts.
They also called several survivors such as Rosborough to describe what they saw inside the Century Aurora 16 theater in the early morning of July 20, 2012, when 12 people were killed and 70 injured. Survivors have testified about how their lives were changed forever.
“I’m about to die,” Rosborough remembers thinking after he was shot. “I’m laying there coughing up blood. I’m wondering why I’m coughing up blood if I was shot in the shoulder.”
Rosborough was also shot in his lower back. The bullet punctured his lung and caused permanent nerve damage that prevents him from lifting his foot when he walks.
Today, his steps resemble a march as he swings his knee up high enough to keep from tripping.
Carli Richards, who testified Thursday, still has shotgun pellets embedded under her skin. Five surgeries have removed others.
From the witness stand, Heather Snyder held up her right hand for the jury. Her middle and index finger were amputated after a bullet mangled them.
Sarah Burnett, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told jurors that she picked up the .223-caliber rifle found behind the theater. The 30-round ammunition magazine, which had not been inserted properly, had fallen to the ground.
Burnett did not empty the magazine at the time, but she said it felt full. She
did not do the final analysis of the rifle, but she said it appeared the gun may have jammed because too many bullets had been loaded into the magazine.
Outside the courthouse, the mother of a victim spoke.
“It’s over for the public,” said Sandy Phillips, whose daughter, Jessica Ghawi, was one of the 12 killed. “They move on, and they forget that the people who were there that night will never forget. They’re permanently damaged.”
