Movie Theater Texting Leads to Fatal Shooting

14 Jan, 2014

An argument over texting in a Florida movie theater ended with a retired Tampa police captain fatally shooting a man sitting in front of him, authorities said.

The former police captain, Curtis Reeves, 71, has been charged with second-degree murder. It’s not immediately clear whether he has retained an attorney.

Pasco County Sheriff’s officials said the shooting happened when Reeves asked 43-year-old Chad Oulson to stop texting at the theater in Wesley Chapel, a suburb about a half hour north of downtown Tampa.

“It ended almost as quickly as it started,” said sheriff’s spokesman Doug Tobin. The sheriff’s office says an off-duty Sumter County deputy detained Reeves until police arrived.

A witness Charles Cummings said the men started raising their voices and popcorn was thrown. Authorities said Reeves took out a gun, and Oulson’s wife put her hand over her husband, and that’s when Reeves fired his weapon, striking Nichole Oulson in the hand and her husband in the chest.

“I can’t believe people would bring a pistol, a gun, to a movie,” Cummings said. “I can’t believe they would argue and fight and shoot one another over popcorn. Over a cellphone.”

Cummings, who said he was a combat Marine in Vietnam, said Oulson fell onto him and his son. Cummings said his son went to call 911, while Cummings and another patron who claimed to a nurse began performing CPR on the victim.

A man sitting next to the shooter grabbed the gun out of his hand, and the suspect did not attempt to get away, Cummings said.

Oulson and his wife were taken by ambulance to a Tampa-area hospital, where the Chad Oulson died, Tobin said. His wife’s injuries were not considered life-threatening.

Tampa Police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said in a news release that Reeves was a captain when he retired from the department in 1993. She added that he was instrumental in establishing the agency’s first tactical response team. After he retired, Reeves worked security for the Busch Gardens theme park and was on the board of a neighboring county’s Crime Stoppers organization.

AP

Image REUTERS/MIKE CARLSON

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