NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — After a schizophrenic man wielding a pellet gun and a fake bomb terrorized a Nashville movie theater, police and mental health experts are left wondering whether he meant to carry out a massacre, or if instead he was acting out an elaborate delusion.
Authorities say 29-year-old Vincente Montano struggled with schizophrenia for more than a decade. Dr. Marvin Swartz, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine said paranoia is often informed by cultural events, like the theater shootings in Colorado and Louisiana. He said Montano "seemed to be re-enacting other shootings, very imperfectly."
Montano doused patrons in pepper spray, cut one with a hatchet and fired on officers with a pellet gun during the Wednesday matinee movie at a theater outside Nashville.
He was killed by police.