In this July 20, 2012 file photo, an Aurora Police officer talks on his radio outside the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora, Colo., at the scene of a mass shooting. It wasn’t until more than 20 minutes into the crisis that dispatchers called on the two-person team, but they didn’t arrive until more than half an hour after authorities first got word of the shooting. That episode was one of the most glaring examples of ambulance delays that may have cost crucial minutes in the chaotic response to a massacre that ultimately left 12 people dead and dozens wounded. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)MIKE BAKER
DENVER (AP) – As the horror unfolded for police first on the scene of the Colorado theater massacre, the officers repeatedly sent out urgent pleas for more ambulances even as a two-man crew and their rig were idling just a few miles away.
Radio traffic from last Friday’s shooting in Aurora, Colo., showed emergency personnel struggling to grasp both the scope of the tragedy and mobilize a response.
While some ambulances were quickly called to duty, it took dispatchers more than 20 minutes into the crisis to ask the Cunningham Fire Protection District and other nearby agencies to provide aid at the multiplex in suburban Denver.
By the time the Cunningham crew arrived, it was more than a half hour after authorities got first word that a gunman opened fire at a packed midnight showing of the new Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12 people and injuring dozens of others.