Survivors of last year's mass shooting in a Colorado theater face the best chance they may have to understand what drove the suspected gunman to fire into the crowd, killing 12 and wounding at least 58. But so far, James Holmes has showed little emotion as the first public details emerge.

His hearing continued Tuesday as a judge determines whether he will stand trial for one of the country's worst mass shootings last year.

Bearded and disheveled, Holmes watched Monday as police officers struggled to hold back tears during their testimony, describing how they found a 6-year-old girl without a pulse, tried to keep a wounded man from jumping out of a moving police car to go back for his young daughter and screaming at a gunshot victim not to die.

Authorities said the victims who died were shot from one to nine times. Holmes is charged with more than 160 counts, including murder and attempted murder.

Prosecutors have suggested that Holmes launched his July attack after flunking out of a neuroscience graduate program. Defense attorneys have said he is mentally ill.

Dozens of survivors and family members of the dead packed the courtroom as details of the attack, until then kept quiet by a judge's order, came out.

"I mean, basically my son came out here to go to school. He never came back. He came back in a jar. So I would at least like to know what happened," said Tom Teves, whose 24-year-old son Alex was killed in the attack. "There's no way to understand this because there's no understanding it, but we want to know at least what happened."

Holmes watched intently as one detective showed surveillance video of him calmly entering the theater lobby, holding the door open for a couple behind him, and printing out tickets to the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises." Authorities did not show video of the attack but said Holmes, wearing body armor, tossed two gas canisters into the packed theater and opened fire.

Officers later found Holmes standing next to his car. Officer Jason Oviatt at first thought Holmes was a policeman because he wore body armor, but then he realized Holmes was just standing there and not rushing inside.

Oviatt said Holmes seemed "very, very relaxed" and didn't seem to have "normal emotional reactions" to things. "He seemed very detached," he said.

Officers saw people running out of the theater and trying to drive away. Others walked. Some of the wounded tried to crawl.

"After I saw what I saw in the theater — horrific — I didn't want anyone else to die," said Officer Justin Grizzle, who ferried the wounded to the hospital.

Inside the theater, the movie was still playing. An alarm was going off, and cellphones rang unanswered.

Caleb Medley was wounded in the head, and Grizzle recalled the 23-year-old struggling to breathe on the way to the hospital. Grizzle said he yelled at him not to die. Medley survived, and his wife gave birth to their first baby days after the shooting.

Another man Grizzle took to the hospital kept asking for his 7-year-old daughter. For about half of the trip, Grizzle said, he had to restrain him from jumping from the car. At one point, the man opened the door and tried.

Sgt. Gerald Jonsgaard, near tears, recalled not finding a pulse on the youngest victim, 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan.

Two pathologists testified that the victims who died were shot anywhere from one to nine times. Matthew McQuinn, 27, who dived in front of his girlfriend to shield her from the bullets, was shot nine times.

The hearing will allow the judge to determine whether the prosecution's case is strong enough to warrant a trial, but it's rare for a judge not to order a trial if a case gets this far.

Legal analysts say that evidence appears to be so strong that Holmes may well accept a plea agreement before trial.

While prosecutors have yet to decide on whether they will seek the death penalty, such a plea could get Holmes a lesser sentence, such as life in prison; help the state avoid a costly trial; and spare survivors and families of those who died from the trauma of going through a lengthy trial.

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Associated Press writers Dan Elliott and P. Solomon Banda contributed.

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