University investigates Colo. shooter’s deliveries; Obama visits today

University investigates Colo. shooter’s deliveries; Obama visits today

Associated Press

AURORA, Colo.

The University of Colorado said it’s investigating whether shooting suspect James Holmes used his position as a graduate student to order materials in the potentially deadly booby traps that police said they found in his apartment.

Holmes, 24, received deliveries over four months to his home and school, authorities said Saturday. University spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said Sunday the school is looking into those packages received at the school.

That detail emerged with other information on the suspect described as a budding scientist, brimming with potential, who pursued a graduate program even as he planned the attack with “calculation and deliberation,” police said Saturday.

Investigators spent hours Saturday removing explosive materials from inside Holmes’ apartment a day after police said he opened fire and set off gas canisters in a theater minutes into a premiere of the “The Dark Knight Rises.” The massacre left 12 people dead and 58 injured.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama again steps into the role of consoler-in-chief during a visit today with distraught families of those gunned down in a minute and a half of horror at a midnight movie showing in Colorado.

While authorities gather evidence on the suspect and the nation tries to fathom what drove the gunman, Obama planned to meet with loved ones struggling with pain and grief.

“We need to embrace them and let them know we will be there for them as a nation,” Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.