DENVER – After the Virginia Tech tragedy five years ago, the University of Colorado and other schools across the U.S. created "threat assessment teams" to identify and take action against students who might turn violent. Now, in the aftermath of the movie theater rampage in Aurora, some are wondering whether the system broke down.

A Denver TV station reported this week that a university psychiatrist was so alarmed by graduate student James E. Holmes' behavior that she tried to bring him to the attention of the school's threat assessment team more than a month before the attack, but the group never met to talk about him because he had already taken steps to drop out.

Holmes, 24, is charged with murdering 12 people and wounding 58 in the July 20 rampage a few miles from the Aurora campus after methodically stockpiling guns and ammunition for months.