A jury on Thursday, May 19 found that the owner of a Colorado movie theater where a gunman killed 12 people during a Batman premiere in 2012 was not liable for the shooting.
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Nearly four years after the fatal Colorado theater shooting at Cinemark’s Aurora Century 16 multiplex, a state jury today decided that the nation’s third largest exhibition chain was not responsible for the tragedy.
Six jurors concluded Thursday that Cinemark was not liable for the 2012 rampage, quickly rejecting victims’ arguments that, in an age of mass shootings, the theater should have foreseen the possibility of violence at a crowded midnight premiere of a Batman film.
The management of a Colorado movie theater where 12 patrons were slain in a 2012 shooting rampage could never have foreseen, nor safeguarded against, such a seemingly random but meticulously planned and violent attack, its lawyers said on Wednesday.
The victims said the theater also should have had security cameras at the back of the theater, where the gunman prepared for his attack, and should have had silent alarms on the exit doors, one of which the gunman entered through to begin shooting.
James Holmes was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for killing 12 people and wounding 70 others in the movie theater in Aurora on July 20, 2012. They deliberated for about three hours.
Cinemark attorneys say nothing could have stopped the heavily armed Holmes. “Cinemark failed to do a number of things that should have been done”.
Kevin Taylor and Kyle Seedorf of Taylor|Anderson were the primary lawyers for Cinemark in the state civil case decided today. “Mr. Holmes was clearly unpredictable, unforeseeable, unpreventable and unstoppable”. “They’re going to have to wait some time now before they get justice”.
Holmes, 28, was sentenced to life without possibility of parole past year after being convicted on 165 counts, including 12 counts of first-degree murder.
If the panel finds Cinemark liable, a second jury will be chosen to decide how much responsibility the company should bear and thus how much it should pay.
“Friday, Saturday and Sunday they always had armed guards in that theater but for a special event, expecting 1,000 people for the premiere of a blockbuster movie, they did not have that type of security”, said Bern.
Cinemark attorneys said guards weren’t needed at a theater with no history of serious violence.
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