NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – What initially appeared to be another mass shooting at a movie theater is beginning to look more like the last desperate act of a severely disturbed homeless man who may have had no intention of harming large numbers of people – but perhaps knew he himself could be killed.
Police say the 29-year-old man identified as Vincente David Montano bought a ticket for “Mad Max: Fury Road” in southern Nashville and entered with pepper spray, a pellet gun and an ax. He fired the pepper spray at several people in the audience before a police officer summoned by other theatergoers confronted him. Montano was shot dead by a SWAT team as he tried to escape out of a back door.
Metro Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron says Montano had been treated at least four times for psychiatric issues.
Metro Nashville police said in a tweet Wednesday afternoon that there was an active shooter situation at the Carmike Hickory 8 theater, but that the suspect was dead.
Active shooter situation @ Hickory 8 Theater — suspect dead
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) August 5, 2015
Aaron said at a news conference late Wednesday that Vincente David Montano of Nashville had “significant psychiatric or psychological issues,” and that he had been arrested in 2004 for assault and resisting arrest. He said a fingerprint taken at the theater matched that from his arrest.
The air inside the theater was thick with the chemical irritant, according to Aaron. The suspect was shot and killed when he tried to leave through the theater’s rear door.
Police say the suspect was the only person shot.
A fire department spokesman says three people have been treated for exposure to pepper spray.
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.
One of the victims says he has no idea why he and six others were attacked.
The man spoke to reporters outside the Nashville-area theater and was identified by a police spokesman only as Steven because his family “does not want any kind of 15 minutes of fame.”
Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron says there were eight people in the theater for the screening of “Mad Max,” including the suspect.
Steven and his daughter were among three people pepper-sprayed, and he was cut by the suspect’s hatchet.
The victim says he has “no idea why this gentleman decided to attack us.”
Just two days before the attack, Montano’s mother told police he was missing.
According to a missing persons report, Denise Pruett contacted police in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on Monday. She told them her son was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in April 2006.
The report says she said she had not seen him since March 2013. The report also says that in May 2015, authorities in Texas contacted her and said she needed to file a missing persons report in Murfreesboro. But it does not specify why Texas authorities were concerned he was missing or believed he was in Tennessee.
The Murfreesboro report says Pruett brought with her a copy of a Tennessee identification card for Montano that listed an address for Nashville Rescue a homeless shelter. The report lists his address as “homeless” and says he “has a hard time taking care of himself.”
Attempts to reach Pruett through phone numbers listed for her and other messages have been unsuccessful.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.