COLO. SHOOTING: POLICE PLEADED FOR AMBULANCES [View all]

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_COLORADO_SHOOTING_AMBULANCES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-07-27-04-19-47

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.