No warning as drifter opened fire at La. movie

There are still five victims in the hospital, four of which are stable and one person that’s in critical condition, police confirmed. Houser then returned to the theater and shot himself in the head with his.40-caliber handgun, Craft said.

Houser, who had only been in Louisiana for a few weeks, had been staying in a motel room which police found littered with wigs, disguises and an escape plan.

“He turned around, went against the crowd and fired a single shot”.

Casualties includes two females.

Breaux, 21, and Johnson, 33, were killed in the theater shooting in Lafayette, LA. “The quick law enforcement response pushed him back into the theater”.

“There’s nothing to believe that there was any kind of motive”, said Col. Michael Edmonson of the Louisiana State Police.

Amanda Rabalais, 19, a college student who frequently shopped at Johnson’s store, said she was stunned by the shooting. That teacher then managed to pull a fire alarm in the theatre, he said.

Houser’s friends and family say that the former entrepreneur harbored extremist political views, and he identified as a member of the Tea Party.

Authorities were still trying to piece together why Houser, who they described as a “drifter” living at a motel, opened fire. “I didn’t hear anybody screaming either”, Domingue said. Investigators say the 59-year-old apparently acted alone when he carried out his own attack Thursday night.

The shooting came as President Barack Obama admitted that a “distressing” lack of progress on gun control has been a great source of frustration during his time in office. Artz also talked to Beth Bone, who said she purchased John Houser’s Phenix City, Alabama, house a year ago. The first threw herself in front of her friend to shield her from the bullets.

Houser’s family disclosed he had “a history of mental health issues, i.e., manic depression and/or bi-polar disorder,” according to court documents in 2008, when he made violent threats in an effort to stop his daughter’s wedding.

Breaux, who sat with her boyfriend in the theater’s back row when the gunfire erupted, was studying to be an X-ray technician at Louisiana State University, the school said in a statement.

But why he was there, why he chose to stand up in a movie theater full of people Thursday night and unleash at least 13 rounds on them, killing two and wounding nine?

“He took his time, methodically choosing his victims”, Governor Bobby Jindal said. “We’re known for family and for food and for festivals and for comfort”. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the people who lost loved ones and also the ones in the hospital”.

“Just because it happened there, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen everywhere, obviously the man had issues”, said moviegoer Monica Thompson.