The attacker at a Tennessee movie theater Wednesday was identified as Vincente Montano, 29. Montano was shot dead by SWAT team officers as he tried to escape out a back door after assaulting audience members with pepper spray.
Montano had armed himself with a hatchet and a pellet gun and was carrying two backpacks. One of the backpacks was later detonated and found to contain a fake bomb.
Montano wore a surgical mask as he pepper-sprayed audience members at a showing of "Mad Max: Fury Road.” There were only eight people in the theater, including him, at the time of the assault. Three people were hit with the spray and were treated but not hospitalized.
Police said Montano had a history of psychological problems:
- Montano was arrested in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 2004 for assault and resisting arrest.
- Montano was committed four times for institutionalized psychiatric treatment — twice in 2004 and twice in 2007.
- Montano had "significant psychiatric or psychological issues," Metro Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron said at a news conference late Wednesday.
- Montano was named in a missing person report Monday. In the report, his mother said he had been "diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2006." (Source: Tennessean)
- No motive for the pepper-spray assault has been identified.
Just weeks ago, a 59-year-old man shot and killed two people in a Lafayette, Louisiana, movie theater before killing himself.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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