Twelve people died in the shooting, as you know, that's at the Century-16 Theatre in Aurora, Colorado. Dozens more were wounded. Some with life-altering injuries. Could all of this have been prevented? Some very big questions tonight. 

 

 

 

John Ferrugia is an investigative reporter for CNN Denver affiliate KMGH. He joins us now with the very latest. 

 

 

 

John, give us a timeline here. We've learned some information about the alleged shooter. It concerns his psychiatrist(精神病学家) actually had about …  

 

 

 

Well, Anderson, in the first 10 days of June, a number of things were going on. I'll give you a timeline here, kind of set the scene(为某事做好准备). On June 7th, the suspect in these shootings was to take an oral exam. He's in the Ph.D. program, the neuroscience program of the University of Colorado. He took this oral exam as a preliminary oral exam and he didn't do well on it at all. Secondly, he had to find a mentor(导师) to continue in this neuroscience program. We're told it's unclear if he could find a mentor. 

 

 

 

On the 7th, on June 7th, the same day that he basically failed that test, he went out in the afternoon and he bought an AR-15 assault rifle. It was in that afternoon that we know that he certainly, or around that period, he was certainly talking to his psychiatrist who was Dr. Lynn Fenton. Now we don't know what those conversations were, but we know during that period, which seemed to be a very high stressed period for him, something that he said to his psychiatrist caused her to contact the University of Colorado Threat Assessment team. 

 

 

 

Now that Threat Assessment team was formed in part with her help and she's on that team. So she's a member, she helped form the team, she contacted several of her colleagues on that team. We don't know what she told him. We don't know what triggered her to call them, but they decided after a day or so not to convene. And the reason was it’s because three days after he failed that test and bought that AR-15, on the 10th of June, he dropped out of school. 

 

 

 

They then thought, the team thought, we're told by our sources, the team thought they had no jurisdiction, they had no control over him so there was nothing that they could do vis-a-vis(相比、面对面) this concern that she had. 

 

 

 

Again, we don't know what the concern was. What we do know is is that no one, through our sources and through our reporting, we have been told, no one contacted the Aurora Police Department with any of these concerns. 

 

 

 

So that's, I mean, that's really interesting. And this is all new information that we're really just learning now. So certainly whatever he had said, allegedly said to his psychiatrist raised enough red flags that she became concerned, contacted other members of this threat assessment team but because he dropped out of the program, you're saying, they never actually, formally intervened or formally got together to discuss him? 

 

 

 

That's correct. Our reporting, though our sources, says that essentially in the process of considering what, you know, Dr. Fenton was telling them, at that point, during that period of time, he dropped out of school. They then thought well, we, you know, we can't really, he's not a student anymore. We're the threat assessment team for the University of Colorado, there's not much we can do. We either don't have jurisdiction or we, you know, what do we know. He's not, he's not coming here anymore. 

 

 

 

As a matter of fact, two days later after the 10th, his access card was cut off. He couldn't, he couldn't come back to the campus and get into any labs or the areas where he was working. 

 

 

 

But, Anderson, be clear on this. We don't know what was said so we don't know the level of threat or the level of concern. And was that level to the level that would have been necessarily, been reportable to the police? As you know right, across the country, there are obviously different rules in different states. But if you're, if you're here, and this is where we need to be to report to police, we don't know if that call to the threat assessment team might have been here, about something down here. 

 

 

 

Right. 

 

 

 

We don't have any idea about that.

 

 

 

John, stick around. I want to bring in practicing psychiatrist, host of HLN's Dr. Drew Pinsky. Also Brett Sokolow. He's the executive director of the National Behavioral Intervention Team that developed the Threat Assessment Program for universities after the Virginia Tech shooting. He joins us now by phone. 

 

 

 

Mr. Sokolow, give us your take on what we've just now learned. The limited information that we have. 

 

 

 

Sure, Anderson. Well, based on what I'm hearing so far and the reading I'm seeing on the coverage, it seems like there was an appropriate flow of information going on within the university that, you know, most concerning …. There was this treating psychiatrist that she communicated that information to the Behavioral Intervention Team on campus. 

 

 

 

Now, we've already talked about there's a threshold for when a psychiatrist can reveal that information. But information flows both ways with this team. Maybe that someone brought information to the team about Holmes and depends on who's on the team they consulted about it, or maybe the extension brought information to the team about Holmes, which would then imply that there was a special threatening behavior that was imminent and that she felt the need to alert the team to that.