By Keith Coffman
DENVER, Jan 15 (Reuters) - The widow of a U.S. Navy veteran
killed in the shooting rampage at a Colorado movie theater has
sued a psychiatrist who treated accused gunman James Holmes,
saying he should have been held in a mental health facility to
protect the public.
The lawsuit, filed in Denver on Monday, is the first
shooting-related suit against psychiatrist Dr. Lynne Fenton and
her employer, the University of Colorado at Denver, according to
college spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery.
Holmes, a former neuroscience doctoral student at the
University of Colorado, is accused of killing 12 people and
wounding 58 others at the July screening of a Batman movie in
one of the worst cases of U.S. gun violence in recent years.
Chantel Blunk, whose 26-year-old husband Jonathan Blunk was
killed in the shooting in a Denver suburb said in the suit that
Fenton knew Holmes "was dangerous" and had a "duty to use
reasonable care to protect the public at large" from him.
Colorado media, including the Denver Post, reported last
month that Fenton rejected a law enforcement offer to
involuntarily confine Holmes for 72 hours after he told her six
weeks before the shooting that he fantasized about killing "a
lot of people."
"Fenton was presented with the opportunity to use such
reasonable care when the Colorado University Police offered to
apprehend James Holmes on a psychiatric hold," the lawsuit
stated. "Fenton breached her duty to use reasonable care."
Fenton's attorney declined to comment on the lawsuit, which
brings a claim of negligence and wrongful death against Fenton
and names the University of Colorado as a defendant because it
employed her.
"The university has nothing but sympathy for the victims,
but in our initial review of this case the university believes
the lawsuit is not well founded legally or factually,"
Montgomery said, on behalf of the University of Colorado.
The lawsuit does not specify the amount of damages Blunk is
seeking but says it is over $75,000. Jonathan Blunk, a U.S. Navy
veteran and the father of two young children, was separated from
his wife when he died in the shooting in Aurora, Colorado.
Prosecutors have depicted Holmes as a young man whose once
promising academic career was in tatters as he failed graduate
school oral board exams in June and one of his professors
suggested he may not have been a good fit for his Ph.D. program.
They have said that in the lead-up to the shooting, Holmes
lost his access to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical
Campus after making unspecified threats to a professor on June
12, then began a voluntary withdrawal from his program.
Fenton has testified she treated Holmes, 25, more than a
month before the shooting and that her professional relationship
with him ended in mid-June. Court documents unsealed last year
said the relationship was severed after Holmes made threats
toward a university psychiatrist, whose name was redacted.
The New York Times and other media organizations have said
that Fenton reported her concerns about Holmes to a police
officer and a campus threat assessment team. A 2011 university
document showed she was a member of the campus threat team.
Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester ruled last
week that there was probable cause to try Holmes in the case,
and outside legal experts say they expect his lawyers to mount
an insanity defense. An arraignment has been set for March 12.
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