A tangle of wires, trip wires, jars full of liquid and things resembling mortar rounds looked like it would keep bomb technicians out of the alleged Aurora theater shooter’s apartment until Saturday.
Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates on Friday night called the potentially explosive mess “vexing” and said that Saturday, bomb technicians from Colorado would get help from the federal government.
“Hopefully, we will be able to address and solve that problem tomorrow,” he said.
Until then, the building at 1690 Paris St., where the gunman who allegedly killed 12 and injured 58 others during an early-morning showing of the newest Batman movie lived, remains evacuated.
Residents evacuated from four other buildings near it were being allowed to return briefly to retrieve necessities, such as medication, Oates said.
Rumors flew around the complex at Peoria and East 17th Avenue, as residents mingled with medical students from the nearby University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and others who came by to see what had become a macabre reminder of the mass shooting at the nearby Century Aurora 16 movie theater.
“It has been very confusing and very frightening,” said Kaitlyn Fonzi, who lives with her boyfriend in the apartment below James Eagan Holmes, 24, who has been identified as the alleged shooter.
Friday morning, police officers and FBI agents rode a firetruck bucket to the third floor of the three-story building, smashed a window with a long pole and took pictures inside Holmes’ residence.
Aurora Deputy Fire Chief Chris Henderson said they found a number of liter-sized soda bottles filled with an unknown liquid connected with wires inside.
“We’re not sure exactly where they connect to,” Henderson said.
Earlier plans to send in a robot were scrapped for the moment.
Henderson said earlier Friday that if a robot somehow detonated the device, the situation would be worse.
Fire crews have been on hand to fight any blaze, but engines have begun to leave.
Henderson said he had never seen a device like this before. He called the situation “fluid” and said it “could change at any moment.”
Jim Yacone, special agent in charge of the Denver FBI, said emergency workers were working on “how to disarm the flammable or explosive material.”
Yellow police tape remains around the run-down complex.
Fonzi, a University of Colorado Denver biology major, said Holmes’ apartment erupted with loud techno music around midnight Wednesday.
She went up to the apartment to ask him to turn the music down. The door was ajar, and she placed her hand on the doorknob but didn’t push it open. Something made her think she shouldn’t go in, she said.
She thought Holmes might have wanted to lure someone inside.
“There has never been music like that playing in that apartment until last night,” she said.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dpmcghee
