911 calls reveal panic at Tennessee movie theater

Police shot dead a man wielding an axe, a replica handgun and pepper spray at a movie theatre near Nashville on Wednesday, in terrifying echoes of two previous cinema shootings.

A search of two bags he had carried with him recovered a propane canister and lighter fluid suggesting that he may have wanted to use it to set off an explosion, police said.

She lived next door to Montano for a decade and told CBS News police were regularly called to the house. Officers said that Montano was hurling things at them and some said they heard “pops” as if from a small-caliber weapon, Aaron said.

It is impossible to say for sure whether Montano knew that the pellet gun would easily be mistaken for a pistol, which is exactly what authorities say happened.

Aaron said Montano had multiple and continuous opportunities to end the situation and surrender, but he chose not to.

SWAT and other officers responded and went into the theater, finding it filled with a chemical spray, Aaron said. Montano was struck and killed.

– July 2012: James Holmes kills 12 people and tries to kill 70 others during a midnight showing of Batman in suburban Denver. But he said Montano had made a gash on the canister, rendering it useless.

Montano was committed four times for institutionalized psychiatric treatment – twice in 2004 and twice in 2007.

Seven months later, Montano’s mother called police again and said she could no longer deal with her son’s mental issues.

Some notified police officers, who had responded to a nearby traffic accident. In February of that year, Denise Pruett told officers he was destructive and broke a coffee table and jewelry box.

Records show Montano was taken to a local hospital for evaluation. She had not seen him since May of this year when he was in Illinois.

That very day, Montano’s mother contacted the Murfreesboro police department to report him missing.

The gunman who stormed into a screening of Mad Max and attacked audience members was reported missing by his mother two days before the rampage. The woman said that her son “had a hard time taking care of himself”, and dropped from sights in 2013.

Attempts to reach Pruett through telephone numbers listed for her and other messages were unsuccessful.

Brian Haas, a spokesman for the Nashville fire department, says one of those three also had a superficial wound that may have been caused by a hatchet.

Aaron said Montano had a history of mental illness and he been committed at least three times in Tennessee. In police reports released Thursday, it was revealed that the Antioch movie theater attacker had previous thoughts of suicide and homicide. More people entered the auditorium, and police said Montano suddenly doused the two women with pepper spray. He clouded the room with pepper spray before swinging the blade at a man and his daughter. Besides the hatchet, Montano was carrying a pellet gun that looked like a semiautomatic pistol and a can of pepper spray.

“There was dust flying everywhere”, said plumber Sean Oliver, who heard a volley of shots and was able to see the back of the theater.

Nashville Metro Police officers talk in front of a display of movie theater posters following a shooting Wednesday, August 5, 2015, in Antioch, Tenn.