(CNN) — It started with a father sending text messages to his daughter during the previews of a movie.
It ended with the 43-year-old man shot dead amid the theater seats, and a 71-year-old retired police officer in custody.
The shooting Monday during a 1:20 p.m. showing of “Lone Survivor” at a Wesley Chapel, Florida, movie theater escalated from an objection to cell phone use, to a series of arguments, to the sudden and deadly shooting, according to police and witnesses.
As a male moviegoer texted, the man seated behind him objected, and asked the texter to put his phone away.
They argued several times, according to police and witnesses, and the man who was texting watched as the other man walked out of the theater. Curtis Reeves, a retired police officer, apparently went seeking a theater employee to complain about the texting, police said.
When Reeves returned, he was without a manager.
The man who had been texting, Chad Oulson, got up and turned to Reeves to ask him if he had gone to tell on him for his texting. Oulson reportedly said, in effect: I was just sending a message to my young daughter.
Voices were raised. Popcorn was thrown. And then came something unimaginable — except maybe in a movie. A gun shot.
Oulson was fatally wounded. His wife was hit, too, through the hand as she raised her hand in front of her husband as the shooter drew a handgun.
The shooter sat down and put the gun in his lap.
It happened that an off-duty deputy sheriff from Sumter County was among the 25 people theater at the Grove 16 complex. He rushed to the scene to make sure no more shots were fired and the shooter would stay put.
It also happened that there were two nurses there and one came to Oulson’s side and performed CPR until paramedics arrived.
Oulson later died. His wife, Nicole, suffered a non-life threatening wound to her hand.
CNN affiliate Bay News 9 reported that Reeves was arrested on a charge of second-degree homicide. It could not be determined Monday night whether he had retained an attorney.
You can read more on the story at CNN.
