Group: Aurora killer worked at Jewish camp in California
Jewish Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Los Angeles says James Holmes worked as counselor at summer camp for underprivileged kids four years ago; video shows him talking about 'temporal illusion'
WASHINGTON - James Holmes, who is suspected of killing 12 people and injured dozens at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colorado, worked at a Jewish summer camp for underprivileged children run by Jewish Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Los Angeles.
Randy Schwab, the organization's chief executive, said Sunday that four years ago Holmes spent a summer working as a counselor for Camp Max Straus in Glendale, California.
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"His role was to ensure that these children had a wonderful camp experience by helping them learn confidence, self-esteem and how to work in small teams to effect positive outcomes," he said in a statement to The Los Angeles Times. "That summer provided the kids a wonderful camp experience without incident."
Meanwhile, ABC News aired a video showing Holmes at age 18 standing among his peers at a science camp held at Miramar College in San Diego talking about "temporal illusions."
"Over the course of the summer I've been working with a temporal illusion. It's an illusion that allows you to change the past," Holmes said in the video.
ABC said he appears slightly nervous speaking to the group but also "extremely intelligent."
Police raid Holmes' apartment (Video: Reuters)
This is how he was explaining his mentor's shared interest in fantasy versus reality in the video:
"He also studies subjective experience, which is what takes places inside the mind as opposed to the external world. I've carried on his work in dealing with subjective experience."
By most accounts, ABC reported, Holmes lived the life of a normal teen - with a particular interest in science.
The video shows him being introduced at the seminar as someone whose "goals are to become a researcher and to make scientific discoveries. In personal life, he enjoys playing soccer and strategy games and his dream is to own a slurpee machine."
ABC said that though Holmes was apparently a gifted scientist who had received a federal grant to work on his Ph.D. at one of the most competitive neuroscience programs in the country, he was a loner who – "oddly for a young scientist - seemed to have no Internet presence."
The University of Colorado said it's investigating whether 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."
His apartment was rigged with jars of liquids, explosives and chemicals that were booby trapped to kill "whoever entered it," Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said, noting it would have likely been one of his officers.
"What we're seeing here is evidence of some calculation and deliberation," Oates added.
Inside the apartment, FBI Special agent James Yacone said bomb technicians neutralized what he called a "hypergolic mixture" and an improvised explosive device containing an unknown substance. There also were multiple containers of accelerants.
AP contributed to the report
