NASHVILLE, Tenn. -
Millions of people took to the Internet following Friday's shooting Colorado, and they did it through Twitter and Facebook.
Like any big story, people turn to social media. Following the massacre in Aurora, police also turned to Twitter.
The Aurora Police Department announced it would release any breaking news through Twitter.
Police also asked for tips, clues and called for press conferences via social media. Then, on Saturday, police updated the public on the search of the suspect's apartment.
Shortly after Noon, Aurora police tweeted they had detonated devices inside the apartment and then warned of the possibility of more controlled detonations.
The Aurora Police Department joined Twitter in November of 2009. Other police departments around the country have discovered Twitter to be one of the most effective ways to get important information to the public.
It's common for the media to turn to Facebook for information. The same is true for regular people too.
Once the suspect's name was released, the media and everyone else seemed to hit Facebook searching for a James Holmes in Aurora, Colorado. They found who they thought was him but it wasn't the same James Holmes.
There are at least four listings for James Holmes in either Aurora or Denver.
One James Holmes was inundated with friend requests, leading him to eventually posting a status on his Facebook wall saying he was not linked to the "savage person."
Another James Holmes posted that his name is "pretty common, surprisingly," and urged people to not "jump the gun."
A third James Holmes who is actually from Aurora told his friends on Facebook he had received "hate mail, racist remarks and sexual advances" within a 24-hour period.
"I have over 400 friend requests in which a quarter of those are people mocking the real killer to gain attention," the same James Holmes wrote. "What kind of world are we living in?"
There are more than two dozen Facebook pages for James Holmes. They were all set up over the last two days by people unrelated to the incident.
The alleged gunman James Holmes does not have a public Facebook page.
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