A middle-aged man armed with a hatchet and gun filled a Nashville movie theater with pepper spray and exchanged gunfire with a police officer before officers shot and killed him Wednesday afternoon, police said.
The man was wearing a backpack on his chest and a surgical mask when he entered a screening of the film "Mad Max: Fury Road" shortly after 1 p.m. local time, according to Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
Moviegoers fled as soon as the man began dispersing the pepper spray, Aaron said, adding that the man was the only person still inside the theater when a Nashville police officer confronted him.