James Holmes, madman

The New York Times article "Before Gunfire, Hints of ‘Bad News’" unfolds for us the life of James Holmes leading up the massacre. It pins him down, makes him a subject of analysis, takes us down a path that runs parallel to his even while he diverges from his own. We learn how witnesses remember him, forming a cohesive picture of the subject we can use as a collective memory from which we draw out the identity of James Holmes, an identity through which we can say, "That was something James would do" or "That was not like James," until we know when the madman appeared. So it goes: James was normal when he was quiet and shy, attending school, and, at times, acting goofy and awkward; but then he became a loner and, more troubling, unconcerned with school, which is abnormal. Normal James worked, was willing to work, assumed a career, a productive life. And so his divergence was here--not in the movie theater.

On July 20, 2012, James is said to have killed 12 people and wounded 58 at a midnight screening of "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises". The movie depicts the saga of a crime fighter, Batman, and James allegedly referred to himself as The Joker, Batman's nemesis, a powerful and enigmatic villain, a clever perpetrator of crimes. But James likely will not be judged to have committed a crime, and therefore not be labeled a criminal. He will exist outside the binary of law. The judicial system shines a light on the accused, and they are judged innocent or guilty. James performed his violence in the dark, and his mind just may remain beyond the light. His peers and the experts may decide that James was a madman before he entered the theater. A sane man doesn't just shirk off his ambitions, lose all interest and sympathy for civil society, and abandon his social pretensions. Lock him up. Society must be defended.