A masked gunman shot dead 14 people and wounded 50 others at a midnight screening of the new Batman movie in Denver. The 6ft tall man, dressed in black and wearing a gas mask opened fire at the showing of The Dark Knight Rises in a mall in Aurora, Colorado and set off a smoke or tear gas bomb. Witnesses said that the man, thought to be in his early twenties, burst through the emergency exit at the front of the auditorium, wearing body armour, and began firing into the audience with a rifle and two handguns as he made his way up the stairs, picking his victims at random. A man, with two firearms, was arrested in a car park nearby and told the police that explosives were stored at his home. Police chief Dan Oates told reporters that an apartment block in the north of Aurora had been evacuated as a consequence of that information. He said they suspect that more weapons may have been left in the cinema.  Police say one person has been arrested and a bomb squad has been sent to the theatre, NBC news reported. Several witnesses have said there were children at the screening and one reported there was a baby in the theatre.  Local hospitals have been alerted to a ‘mass casualty incident’ and police officers are taking people to hospital themselves, not waiting for ambulances. Hayden Miller told KUSA-TV that he was inside Theatre 16 and heard several shots. ‘Like little explosions going on and shortly after that we heard people screaming,’ he told the station. Hayden said at first he thought it was part of a louder movie next door. But then he saw ‘people hunched over leaving theatre.’  The FBI say they are working with the local police.