Tag Archives: Movie Theater

Police shoot dead masked man who took hostages in German cinema

German special police during hostage situation

By Ralf Banser

VIERNHEIM, Germany (Reuters) – A masked man took hostages at a cinema in western Germany on Thursday before police stormed the complex and shot him dead, police said.

No other people were injured, a police spokesman said.

The attacker, who carried a rifle or “long gun”, acted alone and appeared to have been a “disturbed man”, the interior minister of Hesse state, Peter Beuth, told the regional parliament.

Police had not identified the man or established his motive, spokesman Bernd Hochstaedter said, adding that nothing immediately pointed to him having a militant background.

German television showed pictures of heavily-armed police, wearing helmets and body armor, storming the Kinopolis complex in Viernheim, south of Frankfurt, and a couple fleeing the building.

Cinema employee Guri Blakaj told Reuters the gunman, who appeared to be aged between 18 and 25 and was about 1.7 meters tall, entered the cinema at around 3 p.m. and told workers to get into an office.

He then went into a cinema theater. Blakaj, who said there were about six workers and 30 cinemagoers in the building, then heard shots fired.

Police special forces stormed the building and shot him.

There was still a heavy police presence at the scene into the late afternoon, and a helicopter circled overhead.

(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers, Michael Nienaber and Sabine Siebold; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Gunman Killed in Nashville Area Movie Theater

A gunman has been killed after opening fire inside a Nashville, Tennessee area movie theater.

A spokesman for the Nashville Metro P.D., Don Aaron, told reporters on the scene that man came to a showing of the movie “Mad Max” at the Carmike Hickory 8 theater in Antioch with a gun and a hatchet.  The gunman wounded one person with the hatchet and people stormed out of the theater.

A police officer entered the theater from the projection booth.  As the officer was clearing the theater, the gunman opened fire on the police officer.  The officer returned fire as he backed out of the room and held the gunman in place until a SWAT team arrived on the scene.

When the SWAT team arrived and engaged the shooter, he returned fire and then was shot dead by the police.

Aaron told the press conference that two backpacks were found at the scene that belonged to the shooter and the bomb squad was dealing with the bags.

The incident is the second theater shooting at a movie theatre in two weeks.  On July 23rd, a shooter killed 2 and wounded 8 before killing himself inside a theater in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Gunman Kills 2 in Louisiana Movie Theater Shooting

A man police described as a “drifter” opened fire in a Lafayette, Louisiana movie theater on Thursday night, killing two and wounding nine before the gunman took his own life as police closed in on the situation.

Police officials say that some of the wounded are in “very critical” condition with “life-threatening” injuries.

According to witnesses, the gunman, 58-year-old John Russell Houser, sat in the back of a showing of the film “Trainwreck.”  About 100 people were in the theater when he stood up shortly after the film started and began to open fire with a handgun.

“The information we have at this time indicates that he was by himself, he sat by himself and the first two people he shot were sitting right in front of him … When he stood up and started firing, people started rushing out. It looks like he spotted the officers coming in and he turned around, went against the crowd and fired a single gunshot,” Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft told reporters.

Witnesses told NBC that the shooter said nothing as he carried out his rampage.

Governor Bobby Jindal praised two teachers who were inside the theater for their bravery.  One took a bullet that was heading for the second teacher’s head, the second pulled an alarm.

“Both teachers ended up shot. The second one, the one whose life was saved, even though she was shot in the leg, she had the presence of mind to pull the fire alarm to help save other lives,” he said.

One of the dead has been identified as 21-year-old Mayci Breaux, a pro-life activist who is being remembered as an “amazing young woman.”