NASHVILLE, Tennessee — UPDATE: The suspect in Wednesday’s active shooting incident at a Nashville movie theater has been identified as 29-year-old Vincente Montan.
From the Tennessean: Police spokesman Don Aaron said in a 7:45 p.m. press conference that Montano had been arrested on an assault charge in Murfreesboro in 2004. Montano had been committed for mental health care a total of four times, in 2004 and 2007, he said. He had also been reported as a missing person Aug. 3, Aaron said.
Earlier report: Metro Police swarmed the scene Wednesday after an active shooter was reported at the Carmike 8 Cinemas movie theater on Bell Road in Antioch.
Metro Nashville Police say the attack occurred at a showing of ‘Mad Max’ around 1:15 p.m. – Just as the movie was beginning.
The suspect was armed with an air-soft gun, some sort of pepper spray and a hatchet. The 29-year-old white male was also wearing a surgical mask and wearing a backpack on his chest.
The attacker reportedly sprayed movie-goers with the pepper spray and injured at least two victims with the hatchet.
Police were on the scene of a car accident nearby when the call came in and one Officer entered the theater.
When the Officer entered, the gunman emerged from the projector room in the single theater and began firing on the Officer. The Officer returned fire and backed out of the room.
Around that time, SWAT arrived and prepared to enter the building… That’s when the armed suspect exited the theater through the emergency door and was shot and killed by police.
According to WSMV, witnesses at a nearby business reported at least one person covered with blood walked in asking for help.
No one was shot except for the suspect. Those who sustained hatchet wounds were not seriously injured. At least three people were treated due to the pepper spray substance.
The bomb squad detonated the backpack on the suspect’s chest and another bag that the attacker carried. Police said the suspicious item in the bag was a “Hoax device” or fake bomb.
The suspect’s car is believed to be in the parking lot of a library nearby. Police have taped off that parking lot. The investigation is ongoing.
Country Music stars and residents of Nashville took to social media to give condolences.
No further details were available. This is a developing story. Stay with Breaking911 for updates.
(Antioch is a community in southeastern Davidson County, Tennessee, that is governed by the Nashville metropolitan government. The area is assigned to postal zip code 37013.)
From AJC.com: On July 23, authorities say a 59-year-old drifter named John Russel Houser walked into a Louisiana movie theater and shot 11 people, killing two, before shooting and killing himself.
It was the 204th mass shooting in the U.S. in 2015 on the year’s 204th day,according to one crowd-sourced tracking of such events.
These statistics were compiled by the Mass Shooting Tracker, a project by the users of the Guns Are Cool subreddit, and first picked up by the Washington Post. The tracker defines “mass shooting” as: four or more people shot in one event.
Even as the roots of and solutions to such violence are fiercely debated, these statistics bear out their regularity.
According to the definition of mass shooting used in this AJC database (three or more people shot in one event), there has been more than one in Georgia this year — three were domestic murder-suicides, authorities have said.
(Featured Image: AX/Metro Nashville Police) – (Photo of suspect: Screenshot/Sky5HD)
