Aurora, CO "Dark Knight Rises Shooter" Sentenced to Life in Prison

A Colorado man has been sentenced to life in prison for a surprise attack that left 58 people injured and a dozen more dead at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado in 2012.

The Aurora shooting was the first in a spate of recent, high-profile mass shootings that has changed the way Americans talk about gun violence. In the interim, spree killings have received more media coverage and spurred more fractious conversation than ever.

As recently as this week, there have been a number of gunmen targeting movie theaters.

The gunman will not be eligible for parole, although the decision to give him life in prison in Colorado, a death penalty-eligible state, is already drawing criticism, particularly since all of Colorado's current death row inmates are black men and the Aurora gunman is white.

At the time of the shooting, the gunman's brightly-colored hair led some to associate him with The Joker, especially because of the fact that he targeted a Batman film. The gunman was not known to be a comic book reader or a Batman fan, though, and seemingly targeted the film not because of its content but because it provided a large gathering of people with few exits.

ComicBook.com has typically resisted naming the shooter. In a 2012 essay, blogger and Aurora shooting survivor A.J. Focht wrote of the assailant, "stop showing the face of and talking about the shooter. He is a coward that massacred an unsuspecting group of civilians. Every time you talk about him, you only help add his name to the pages of history."

Shortly after the shootings, a nonprofit group called Aurora Rise was established to help pay for medical, funeral and other expenses for the victims of the shooting and their families. Aurora Rise frequently works with the comics and entertainment community on things like comic book store signings, auctions and benefit screenings. Recently, they conducted a charity screening of Marvel's Ant-Man.

You can donate to Aurora Rise or find out what events they are conducting here.