Last updated 1:36 p.m., August 6
What looked to be an attempt at a movie theater shooting was thwarted by Nashville police Wednesday afternoon. Law enforcement officials say a man wearing a surgical mask, carried two backpacks and wielded a gun and an ax.
The assailant — identified as Vincente David Montano — was killed before anyone was seriously hurt.
It was a lightly-attended 1:15 p.m. showing of the thriller “Mad Max: Fury Road” at the Carmike Hickory 8 cinema in Antioch, when a 29-year-old man bought a ticket, purchased a mango drink at a nearby store and walked inside.
Only seven other people were in the screening room. He appeared to choose three at random. The man doused two women, ages 53 and 17, with a chemical spray. He struck another man, 58, with an small ax.
People rushed from the theater to find police responding to a nearby wreck. Officers arrived on the scene within minutes, beginning their search for the attacker holed up in the building.
Working down from a projection room, one officer, Jonathan Frith, found the man, ready to shoot.
The man pulled the trigger. The officer heard the pop and returned fire, then retreated from the theater to wait for backup.
“The actions of that first officer who went into the theater to engage this individual may well have saved multiple individuals inside that theater as officers worked to evacuate everyone in here,” Metro Police spokesman Don Aaron said.
Police say as SWAT officers entered the theater, the man filled the room with a cloud of pepper spray.
He fired again — police later found that Montano carried an Airsoft pellet gun — and four SWAT officers shot back. The confrontation ended in a 10-second barrage of bullets that killed Montano as he tried to flee out of an exit door. The time was 1:54, just 41 minutes after the first 911 call came in. Five officers stationed outside fired on Montano.
“We have one of the best police forces in the nation,” Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said in a statement, ”and it showed this afternoon in the way our officers lived up to their very thorough training.”
No one was transported to the hospital. The three victims in the attack were treated on the scene. The man, who would identify himself only as Steven, suffered just a superficial wound from the ax.
He spoke briefly to reporters but refused to answer any questions.
“I would ask anyone to pray for his [the attacker’s] family, because he obviously has some mental problems or something else,” he said. “We did nothing to bring this upon ourselves.”
“I have no idea why this gentleman decided to attack us,” he said, adding that he’s ”eternally grateful” for the police intervention.
Police found the man’s backpacks. One contained what appeared to be a bomb. Police believed it was a hoax device but detonated it anyway, citing an abundance of precaution.
Asked about security measures at movie theaters, police chief Steve Anderson said there’s always a threat when people are gathered in public.
“This is maybe what we call the new normal,” he said. “We can’t just shut down America. We can’t say we’re not going to the theaters. We can’t say we’re not going to church. We carry on. But we need to be very mindful of our surroundings as we do that.”
Aaron later described Montano as a mentally ill man who appears to have drifted between addresses in Murfreesboro and Nashville. He’d been reported missing two days ago by his mother in Texas.
They said the gun he brandished was an Airsoft pistol made to look like a semi-automatic weapon.
Police said they haven’t yet figured out his motive.
This post has been modified to add the name of the officer who first engaged Montano.
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