BY Taiwo George
A lone gunman killed two people, injured seven before shooting himself inside a crowded movie cinema in Louisiana, a state in the southern region of the United States (US), on Thursday evening.
About 100 people had sat down to watch the 7:10 pm screening of ‘Trainwreck’ at the Grand Theater 16 in Lafayette, a city of about 120,000 people about 60 miles west of Baton Rouge, when the bullets flew.
Witnesses said the gunman abruptly stood up in the darkness of the cinema about 20 minutes into the movie and began shooting.
Tanya Clark, a witness, told Sky News that she had been buying popcorn when a group of people ran out of the cinema telling everyone to run.
She added: “I thought it was just teenagers playing a little prank, you know, and then I saw a whole other bigger group coming out screaming the same thing.
“And then we saw a lady with blood all over her leg. I just grabbed my child and ran.”
Authorities said they knew the gunman’s identity but were not releasing his name during the early stage of the investigation.
They offered no immediate motive and did not disclose any clues they might have found.
Jalen Fernell, who was in a theater next door, said he felt the gunshots “were part of the movie at first”.
“An alarm went off, followed by an overhead intercom message asking patrons to get out.
“Immediately we get terrified because they are telling us to head out to vehicles,” he said. “It was kind of like a war going on … gunshots after gunshots.”
Paige Bearb, another witness, said she took off running when the alarm sounded.
“I saw people bleeding from the leg, they were shot,” she said. “And I was like ‘Wow.’ It was like a movie itself.”
The incident happened almost three years after a massacre at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, killed 12 people.
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