Theater suspect’s mom reported him as missing

Responding SWAT officers then engaged in a standoff with Montano, who had taken cover and was throwing objects including canisters of pepper spray at police who had trained their weapons on him, police spokesman Don Aaron said.

“This is maybe what we call the new normal”, Metro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson said. Authorities said Montano was likely wounded in that exchange, but continued to disobey officers.

“His motive for all this is yet to be determined”, Aaron said. Montano also had a pellet gun.

This story has been corrected to show that the name of the police department is Metro Nashville, not Nashville, and that the name of the Uber driver is Erick, not Eric.

But the pistol turned out to be a dud, an airsoft gun, which usually fires BBs and plastic pellets – hardly a deadly firearm.

Reporter: Police say that 29-year-old Vincente David Montano was carrying canisters of propane and lighter fluid to use as explosives.

We’re so thankful that no one else was injured or hurt in the frightful act and we wish the best to all those affected by this very bad event.

The attacker also had a gun and died in a shootout with police. All 10 officers have been placed on administrative duty while a preliminary investigation is carried out, according to the Nashville police.

“This shady-looking guy stood up with, like, two bags and he walked toward the back of the theater and he pulled out, like, a hatchet and started attacking this family”, said the caller.

Officers say he let off huge amounts of red-tinted tear gas and slashed a man with his axe. The man’s wife and daughter received blasts of the pepper spray. He said investigators were going through a second backpack that Montano left at the theater.

He was killed by police. “That’s when the officer fired his weapon at the suspect in that initial confrontation”.

The officer, who Aaron said “may well have saved multiple individuals inside”, returned fire and waited for backup.

The suspect was shot and killed when he tried to leave through the theater’s rear door.

The air inside the theater was thick with the chemical irritant, according to Aaron. The three people who were pepper sprayed were treated at the scene.

Instead of a packed house showing a newly released popular film, Montano waged his attack in a theater where only seven others besides himself were present at midday, watching a movie that had already been out for some time. The suspect was then found dead.

Police work outside of the Grand Theatre after the shooting. Montano was the only person inside the theater when a Nashville, Tennessee police officer went inside to confront him. No other details were immediately given.

Police gather outside a movie theater at the scene of a reported shooting, Wednesday, August 5, 2015, Nashville, Tenn. On Monday, the same day a missing person report about Montano was filed in Murfreesboro, a Metro police officer went to the mission to check on Montano’s welfare.

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. Court clerks said they needed permission from the county attorney to release the records.

Less than an hour after officers were called, police reported that the “active shooter situation” was over and the man initially described as a gunman was dead.