Theater chain not liable for Colorado movie massacre

A Colorado jury took two hours Thursday to decide Cinemark, a theater chain, is not liable for the 2012 massacre that killed 12 and injured 70 others.

In a civil trial that lasted two weeks, 28 families of those killed and wounded sued the nation's third largest theater chain for its inadequate security that failed to prevent one of the worst massacres in U.S. history.

But the jury of five men and one woman Thursday followed Cinemark lawyer Kevin Taylor's closing argument on Wednesday, holding that mass murderer James Holmes was armed to the teeth and unstoppable in his quest to hurt others.

The massacre "was completely unpredictable, unforeseeable, and unpreventable," Taylor told the media after Thursday's ruling, adding that plaintiffs were just trying to get money from Cinemark.

"This is an unjust verdict," said the plaintiffs' attorney Marc Bern, hoping the case would be retried if the court grants an appeal. But insiders told Xinhua that is unlikely.

Ben argued that Cinemark, whose 2015 revenue was 2.85 billion U.S. dollars, should have had security cameras, armed guards, and exit doors with alarms at the July 20, 2012 premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises."

In this era of mass shootings and terrorist attacks, the theater giant could have done more to prevent the carnage, he said.

"Such shootings are still so rare that the management could not have anticipated one at a theater with no history of serious violence," Taylor said. "Cinemark endured a tremendous tragedy as did the victims of the case and the entire Aurora community."

Holmes, a graduate school dropout, was sentenced in July of last year 12 life sentences and 3,317 years in prison without the chance of parole.

Had the jury sided with the plaintiffs on Thursday, another jury would have been empaneled and another trial would be held to determine damages for the victims, which would have been millions of dollars, experts told Xinhua.

The trial was closely watched by the entertainment industry because a verdict against Cinemark is expected to trigger enhanced security measures in movie theaters across America, including metal detectors, video surveillance and armed guards.

Cinemark spent several million dollars in its defense, and will hire Taylor again in July when one more civil trial is scheduled in Denver's Federal Court, with a different group of theater victims suing Cinemark, which owns 634 theaters in 13 countries and regions around the world.