University mum on shooting suspect

Associated Press

AURORA, Colo.

University of Colorado officials refused to release any significant details Monday on their yearlong association with James Holmes, the former neuroscience graduate student accused of killing 12 people at a midnight movie in Aurora.

Law enforcement authorities have said Holmes was stockpiling weapons even as he was enrolled in a prestigious neuroscience graduate program at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus.

University officials called a news conference Monday at which they said law-enforcement officials had asked them to refrain from talking about the case. University officials also have cited privacy laws in not releasing details of Holmes’ academic record.

“We are not trying to be evasive. We’re trying to be as transparent as we can,” said Lilly Marks, vice president for health affairs.

Yet question after question went unanswered. Little bits of information trickled past the refusals to answer, but for the most part, the news conference was marked by a lack of news.

The school’s silence has heightened the mystery surrounding Holmes, whom friends and acquaintances in his native California described as smart and reserved. After graduating from the University of California- Riverside, Holmes enrolled in the competitive graduate neuroscience program in June 2011. He won a prestigious National Institutes of Health grant that paid a $26,000 stipend in addition to tuition.

Holmes, 24, resigned without explanation from the program June 10, the university said Sunday.

On Monday, Barry Shur, dean of the university’s graduate school, described the doctoral program as a close-knit group in which professors keep close tabs on their students.

“This is a family. It’s a team-building, family environment,” Shur said. “[Professors] are very much in contact with the students in the program ... especially any student who might have academic or other difficulties,” he said.