Atlanta police Wednesday were searching for the shooter who fired a gun in a crowded Midtown theater Tuesday night and wounded two people.
The shooting happened around 10 p.m. inside the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema on Monroe Drive. The incident reportedly occurred after the premiere showing of the comedy “Finesse.”
A man sustained a gunshot wound to the buttocks, while a woman was grazed in the leg, Atlanta police spokesman Officer John Chafee said. The two were taken by ambulance to Grady Memorial Hospital and were in stable condition.
“It appears that this started as a verbal altercation and that escalated to gunfire at some point,” Chafee said.
The screening was well attended, police and witnesses said, with the latter telling The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they saw nothing after the screening that would have seemingly led to such an incident.
“We had a standing ovation, everybody was happy about the movie, but all of a sudden we go out into the concession and there were two shots,” said Corey Crum, one of the film’s actors. “A dude left grabbing his leg, and somebody else was grabbing their side, and people were lying around crying and hollering. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen before in my life.”
Another one of the movie’s actors, Christian Saslo, said several of those involved in the film were signing autographs right after it was screened. He said it was possible that the shooter had been in the same theater.
“He could’ve been somebody we shook hands with right before this happened,” he said.
“At first I thought maybe [the first gunshot] was a balloon, but then when you hear the second one, and everybody starts jumping,” Saslo added.
— Staff writer Mike Morris contributed to this report.
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