Suspected Aurora, Colo., theater shooter James Holmes‘s first court appearance Monday was pushed offline due to large interest in the subject and limits set forth by the courts.
The Internet watched the suspect appear before a judge on Monday via local station KUSA-9News’ live stream, but high-traffic volumes to the feed caused a series of audio and visual glitches to disrupt service for those watching around the world.
The District Court of Arapahoe County agreed on Friday — just hours after the massacre occurred during a midnight screening of the Dark Knight Rises — to allow expanded media coverage for the advisement proceedings on Monday morning. In his ruling, the judge allowed audio, video and still cameras into the proceedings, but with a strict set of limitations.
SEE ALSO: Colorado Theater Shooting: How it Played Out OnlineThe most pressing limitation was the limit of the single video stream — in this case, KUSA-9News — that was allowed to record the audio and video from the proceedings. KUSA-9News was also allowed to live stream the video and audio for Internet or live broadcast.
It looks like the court agreed to allow KUSA to live stream the proceedings — and share the ensuing stream with a larger media pool — in an attempt to get the coverage in as many places as possible.
Unfortunately, in practice, the traffic from the live stream took down the transmission online and on-air.
KUSA has since aired and edited clips from the courthouse that had been cut off during the live stream. Watch Holmes’s court appearance below.
Image via KUSA-9News
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