The man who was shot and killed by police Wednesday after he attacked moviegoers in Nashville, Tennessee, has been identified as 29-year-old Vincente David Montano.
Nashville police say Montano doused the audience with pepper spray while they were watching Mad Max: Fury Road at a movie complex located in the southern suburb of Antioch. Police working a traffic accident near the theater immediately responded and confronted Montano in the theater.
"We were the only two ones in the theatre, I went back inside and we kind of took cover and then, we heard screams and then a shot and then a little while after that, Metro police came in and they escorted us out to the emergency exit,” said Jessica Alarid, an eyewitness.
Montano exchanged fire with an officer before running out of the back of the theater, where he was gunned down by a rapid response police unit.
Police spokesman Don Aaron says Montano had been arrested in 2004 on an assault charge, and had been committed in a psychiatric hospital twice in 2004 and twice in 2007.
Montano was believed to be carrying a handgun, but Aaron later said police determined he was carrying a pellet gun. He was also carrying a hatchet and two backpacks. A bomb squad detonated one of backpacks, which was carrying a fake bomb.
Three people in the theater were treated for exposure to pepper spray, including a 58-year-old man, who was also treated for a superficial wound that may have been caused by the hatchet. None of the victims were hospitalized.
Wednesday's incident comes just two weeks after another gunman killed two people and wounded nine in a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana.
It also comes as a jury decides whether James Holmes should be put to death for the 2012 Colorado movie theater massacre that killed 12.
