About 10 minutes into the prosecution’s closing statement in the mitigation phase of the theater shooting trial, an unidentified woman started climbing the seats in the gallery all the way from the back row toward Holmes’ parents and him. DA George Brauchler had just told the jury:
“Is mental illness a shield to protect someone? To treat him differently?
At that, she climbed over at least 5 rows before sheriffs deputies got her and dragged her out of the courtroom screaming “Don’t kill him!!!! It’s not his fault! I have mental illness in my family!!!”
I was the only journalist to follow her into the hall and witnessed 7 sheriff’s deputies take her down. She screamed in the hallway “Get off my knee! I can’t breathe! It’s mental illness!!!”
As they took her to the ground, she continued to scream “They can’t kill him! They can’t kill him!!”
You can see the attorneys reacting to the outburst the moment it happened.
And then “Why didn’t you give him my pictures?” (I suspect this is in reference to her sending James Holmes pictures of her. The defendant has groupies). The deputies escorted her down the elevator across the way to a holding cell in the Arapaho County jail. One followed the group with her purse, sunglasses and a Starbucks Frapuccino drink.
The court administrator does not now where this woman lives, but said that she has been in the courtroom on and off all week long. Judge Carlos Samour commented that the woman had been told the rules of the courtroom by the sheriffs deputies. She may be called for a hearing on contempt of court.
Meanwhile, the jury is deliberating whether the mitigating circumstances, ie: the defendant’s mental illness, outweighs what the defendant did on July 20, 2012. If they don’t reach a verdict by the end of the day, they will be back on Monday to deliberate more.