DENVER – Tightening the secrecy over the year Colorado shooting suspect James Holmes spent studying neuroscience, a judge has barred the University of Colorado Denver from releasing any records about the former graduate student’s time there.
What happened to the 24-year-old during his time in the program at the school’s Anschutz Medical Campus is one of the many mysteries stemming from last Friday’s mass shooting at a theater in which he’s accused of killing 12 people and injuring 58 others at a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Neighbors and friends in San Diego, where Holmes grew up, described him as brilliant and sometimes awkward but never displaying signs of violence. He entered the prestigious Colorado program in June 2011, but a year later he dropped out after taking a year-end oral exam.
Numerous media organizations, including The Associated Press, filed open records requests for school records about Holmes after he was named as the suspect in the July 20 shooting.
But in an order signed Monday and released by the school Thursday in response to an open records request by the AP, District Court Judge William Blair Sylvester said releasing information in response to requests filed under the Colorado Open Records Act would “impede an ongoing investigation.” Sylvester is overseeing the criminal case against Holmes, who is expected to appear in court Monday and be formally charged.
Sylvester cited a provision of the Colorado Open Records Act that prevents the public from viewing open records “prohibited by … the order of any court.”
Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers requested the order after the University of Colorado Denver warned her office Saturday about the record requests.
In its request to the court, the district attorney’s office noted that reporters were not requesting educational records, which would be prohibited from being released, but emails that are not exempted from the open records law.
The order was not part of the publicly available case file until Thursday due to a clerical error.
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