Residents of the 12-unit apartment building where suspected Aurora theater gunman James Eagan Holmes lived were allowed home Wednesday evening.
At dusk, the three-story building appeared to not yet have power restored and many people went in, collected a few things and then left, as Aurora police kept a horde of reporters behind police tape about 30 feet from the front and back doors.
None of the residents submitted to reporters’ pleas for comments before dark set in. One young women, who parked on the street beyond police’s ability to keep reporters back, ran a gantlet of TV cameras and stick microphones. Reporters asked questions, which she largely ignored.
“Please,” she said trying to scramble past a pair of TV cameramen in her path back to her car. “I don’t know anything.”
A restoration crew worked outside the building, boarding up the second-floor windows to Holmes’ apartment, which had been broken out as bomb squads disarmed a trip wire and removed 30 improvised explosive devices on Saturday, a day after residents were evacuated.
Four other buildings were also evacuated, and dozens of children played nearby as police, reporters and residents carried on the latest spectacle since the shooting at the Century Aurora 16 theater about 3 miles away.
The apartment building where Holmes had lived is populated by students who study about two blocks away at the Anschutz Medical Campus and other young professionals.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174, jbunch@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joeybunch
