Police went to theater suspect’s home in 2004
Police say the suspect in a shooting at a Nashville-area movie theater was armed with a hatchet and a gun before being shot by an officer.
When Montano tried to leave through the theater’s back door, he was met by a SWAT team. Montano stood up, moved toward the women and then sat back down – and then “abruptly and suddenly, without any provocation”, doused them with pepper spray and struck another man with an ax, Aaron said.
Investigators said Montano arrived about 25 minutes before the 1:15 p.m. showing of Mad Max: Fury Road at the Carmike Hickory 8 Cinema on Wednesday and bought a ticket.
The investigation continues into a weird attack at an Antioch movie theater, where a man armed with a hatchet and an airsoft pistol unleashed chemical spray on a handful of moviegoers.
But police were called back two hours later and Montano was arrested, booked with simple assault on an officer and resisting arrest.
Aaron said police had not uncovered a motive, but he said Montano had been committed for psychiatric treatment at least four times, twice in 2004 and twice in 2007. Police said that call resulted in a Pruett filing a missing person report regarding her son with Murfreesboro police on Monday. Two women, a 17-year-old and 52-year-old were pepper sprayed by the suspect.
One man was injured by the hatchet.
Police work outside of the Grand Theatre after the shooting.
In three separate occasions, Murfreesboro police were called to Montano’s home that he shared with his mother for domestic disturbances.
The propane tank Montano carried had been gashed and the gas escaped.
Police say 29-year-old Vincente Montano was wanted there on domestic battery and property damage charges.
Ultimately the Department of Public Safety confirmed the remains were not Montano.
“I wasn’t the only one there, just by chance, I was the one that engaged [Vincente Montano]”, he said, adding, “If you’re the first guy there, you’re going in”.
Sanchez said she later heard what sounded like “rapid fire” and saw the large police presence. While original reports to and from law enforcement stated that Montano was a potential “active shooter“, apparently it was a different picture that later came to light when it was discovered the weapon was a pellet gun that officers mistook for a real firearm, according to The Washington Post.
Three people were treated for exposure to pepper spray, including a 58-year-old man who also suffered a superficial wound to his shoulder, likely from the ax, Brian Haas of the Nashville Fire Department told reporters. He fired a shot and backed out of the theater.
Attempts to reach Pruett through phone numbers listed for her and other messages have been unsuccessful.
The attack came about two weeks after a shooting in where two people were killed and nine others wounded before the gunman took his own life, and about three years after 12 people were slain and dozens wounded by a gunman in Aurora, , during a midnight screening of the film “The Dark Knight Rises“.
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. “Officers believed he was carrying an explosive… and deemed him to be an imminent threat”.