On Tuesday, psychiatrist of alleged Dark Knight shooter James Egan Holmes, Dr. Lynne Fenton said that she informed a police about the 24-year-old expressing concern that her patient showed signs of imminent violence. The fact that Dr. Fenton had to break the doctor-patient confidentiality code and surpass University authorities to inform the police suggests that her concern had to be of the highest degree.
Dr. Carol Bernstein, psychiatrist at NYU Langone Medical Center and former president of the American Psychiatric Association, told Good Morning America, "For any physician to break doctor-patient confidentiality there would have to be an extremely good reason...Confidentiality is a key part of the doctor-patient relationship...It is central to everything we do."
The police that was contacted is currently being questioned as a part of the on going investigation.
Last Saturday in the latest development in case, the University of Colorado hired former US District Attorney Robert Miller to investigate the university in the case of Holmes, the alleged Aurora movie shooter after Dr. Fenton said earlier revealed that she had expressed concern to authorities but the University failed to respond to her claims.
The University released a statement to CNN, "The University is doing everything it can to fully cooperate with the criminal investigation. Additionally, we are doing everything we can to understand how the university's systems and processes functioned in this situation. Bob Miller comes to us with a stellar reputation for diligence and integrity. We have given him broad latitude to conduct his review," (www.wptv.com).
Earlier this week, Dr. Fenton revealed that expressed concern over the former neuroscience Ph.D. student to the university's Behavior Evaluation and Threat Assessment department in June; however Holmes soon dropped out of the program and the college could no longer take any action.
On July 20, at a midnight screening of the cult-inducing Dark Knight Rises film at a movie house in Aurora, Colorado, Holmes, opened fire allegedly killing 12 people and injuring 59 others. He was arrested that morning and placed in a detention facility of Arapahoe County in solitary confinement.
The 24-year-old was charged with 24 counts of first-degree murder and 116 counts of attempted murder. He is also facing separate charges of aggravated assault and injuries caused to the surviving victims.
Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney Carol Chambers told News Day that she is considering pursuing the death penalty, but only after consulting with the victims and their families.
Although, there are no developments as to the motives of the shootings, police said that Holmes had purchased the assault rifles with which he carried on the killing the day he failed an exam hinting to an "underlying mental illness that was triggered by the stress of failure," according to reports by ABC News. But Holmes had starting accumulating ammunition and other arms a month prior to the killing.
Also last week, police recovered a journal that the Ph.D. drop-out sent the university physiatrist cautioning on the upcoming fatal event he planned. Unfortunately, the journal remained in an unchecked mail-box and was discovered only until it was too late.
Holmes sent a journal, which was "full of details about how he was going to kill people," according to Fox News to the University of Colorado Anschutz medical campus in Aurora psychiatrist. However it was not discovered until too late.
Police found his apartment to be inundated with ammunition in addition to being booby-trapped. Police required a bomb-squad to disarm his apartment; residents were evacuated for over a week before they could return back to their homes. The apartment of the alleged shooter revealed that he had been preparing for the shooting months in advance and had accumulated a number of weapons, ammunitions and explosives over a period of time.
He is currently being kept in detention facility. He has yet to enter a plea, but there is a growing possibility that his lawyers might file for the temporary insanity or mental incompetency.
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