Despite pressure from the media to release details about James Holmes–the shooter who killed a dozen people at a movie premiere last week–the University of Colorado has kept quiet. According to the Huffington Post:
University officials called a news conference Monday at which they said law enforcement officials had asked them 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 winning 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 on Sunday.
The situation calls to mind Jared Lee Loughner, the Tucson shooter, who had taken classes at a community college. When the college eventually released details of Loughner’s time there, it was clear that he was a disturbed individual, but that the college had handled him in the best way possible.
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