Small blast disables trip wire to 30 IEDs inside Holmes’ apartment

Just before noon Saturday, a bomb squad robot trundled into the heavily armed apartment of accused Aurora theater shooter James Eagan Holmes

Inside, the living room of the 800-square-foot apartment was strewn with about 30 softball-sized improvised explosive devices, said a bomb technician at the scene.

The robot dropped a device similar to a water bottle, then retreated. With traffic blocked off and human lives safely blocks away, the apartment at 1690 Paris St. emitted a boom — infinitesimal compared to the one the delicate operation was designed to prevent.

Aurora police told reporters to stand behind their vehicles two blocks away, just in case. Gov. John Hickenlooper was among those who waited nearby during the controlled detonation.

Bomb technicians deactivated a trip wire as they worked to breach the apartment, booby-trapped with the improvised explosive devices.

“We have been successful in defeating our first threat,” Sgt. Cassidee Carlson of the Aurora Police Department said afterward. “This is some serious stuff they’re dealing with.”

The water bottle device disabled a “9D trip device” and managed to avoid setting off any of the other explosives nearby.

Aurora Deputy Fire Chief Chris Henderson said they found a number of liter-sized soda bottles filled with an unknown liquid and connected with wires

Carlson said police hoped to preserve as much of Holmes’ living space to aid the investigation.

“Anything that’s in there, we’re going to be using as evidence,” Carlson said. “So we’re going to be very cautious with how we deal with things, with how we take things out.”

Saturday afternoon, the explosives were moved to an open field east of Aurora in a dump truck packed with sand.

At the disposal site, the explosives were moved to a trench and doused in diesel fuel, before they were ignited, finally neutralizing their threat.

The three-story red brick building, populated mostly by college students and young professionals, has been evacuated since Friday morning, after Holmes was arrested in the shooting rampage that left 12 dead and 58 wounded.

Police hoped to make the building safe, but as of Saturday afternoon it appeared only residents in four other nearby apartment buildings might be allowed to return home that day.

Police officers and FBI agents used a fire truck bucket Friday morning to ride to the top floor of the three-story building. They smashed a window with a long pole and then took pictures of the inside of Holmes’ apartment, showing the magnificently planned and constructed trap, presumably left to kill police officers who responded after the theater attack.

Kristen Leigh Painter: kpainter@denverpost.com, 303-954-1628 or twitter.com/kristenpainter