Aurora shooter James Holmes transferred out of Colorado prison

CANON CITY , Colo., March 4 (UPI) -- James Holmes, convicted of killing 24 people in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, has been transferred to a different prison after he was assaulted.

Holmes, 28, who is serving a life sentence, was assaulted by another inmate at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City after a security gate was inadvertently left open in October.

"We had not allowed Holmes at that time to come into daily contact with other offenders," Colorado Prisons Director Steve Hager told ABC News in February. "That was not part of the management plan of him."

Hager said the attack was part of the reason for moving Holmes: "There were many concerns. The attack was part of the concern."

Holmes was convicted on 24 counts of murder and 140 counts of attempted murder in the shooting rampage in 2012. He typically only came into contact with prison staff at the prison.

But as he left a case manager's office on Oct. 8, 2015, a prison staffer opened a sliding gate, unaware it put Holmes near Mark Daniels, a convicted car thief. Daniels attacked Holmes, hitting him on the head several times, and an officer escorting Holmes was unable to radio for assistance because "his battery had gone dead," a post-incident assessment said.

Prison staff broke up the assault, but Daniels struck a staffer "on the left side of her below the eye, and on the top of her head," the ABC reported.

Holmes did not require medical attention.

Holmes was transferred to an undisclosed maximum-security prison outside Colorado, Fox News reported, citing prison spokeswoman Laurie Kilpatrick.