The suspect entered the theater carrying a hatchet or ax and a gun, and was wearing a backpack, according to police.
Advertisement
Since the suspect also had two backpacks, the bomb squad was brought in, but thankfully they discovered it was a fake bomb. A man armed with a hatchet and a pellet gun unleashed a volley of pepper spray at audience members inside a movie theater before being fired at by a police officer and shot dead by a SWAT team as he tried to escape out a back door, police said.
Two women, aged 17 and 53, were hit in the face with the spray, but no one else was being transferred to nearby hospitals and the area was later deemed safe. He Was Arrested for Assaulting a Police Officer in 20045.
Aaron said Montano had been reported missing to Texas police two days ago and they had notified authorities in Tennessee.
Montano had “significant psychiatric or psychological issues”, Metro Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron said at a news conference late Wednesday. The only person shot was the assailant, Aaron said.
A 58-year-old man sustained “superficial” injuries to his shoulder and arm from the ax and was also hit with the pepper spray, said Nashville Fire Department spokesman Brian Haas.
Aaron said the responding officer thought the gun was real and that he heard popping noises when Montano pulled the trigger, prompting him to fire his service weapon.
Both shootings are reminiscent of the 2012 so-called Batman massacre, when gunman James Holmes opened fire during a showing of The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 and harming 70 more. One photo shows an “Airsoft” brand pellet gun and the other shows a brown, tattered hatchet. “This could have been a lot worse”, Haas said.
A mom said she thinks metal detectors are a good idea because she normally goes to the movies with her small children.
Police officers talk by a display of movie posters, including one…
The suspect sprayed pepper spray inside the theater.
This lady was fortunate to miss the whole incident, “I was going to go see Mad Max this afternoon but decided to be lazy instead”.
The entire event Wednesday lasted less than an hour. “I just didn’t want it to come here”.
Advertisement
The theater in Antioch is near Global Mall, a shopping center in a middle-class neighborhood.
