Nashville Police Kill Man Armed With Gun and A Hatchet Inside Theater, Suspect's Bags Being Searched

Police in Antioch, Tennessee, a small community outside of Nashville, have shot dead a man who entered a cinema armed there with a gun and a hatchet Wednesday afternoon, local officials said. Police spokesman Don Aaron told waiting media that one person at the scene may have received a hatchet wound and medical teams were treating three other individuals for exposure to pepper spray alleged to have been carried by the suspect.

It’s also believed that the shooter left behind two backpacks in the cinema. Police are testing the bags for explosives and other chemicals.

Police officials said that a shooting was reported at 1:13 p.m. CDT at the Carmike Hickory 8 theater in Antioch. A police officer arrived at the scene and entered the cinema before engaging in a gunfight with the suspect. The officer then reportedly backed out of the cinema and called in a SWAT team, which killed the gunman inside the cinema.

It's not yet clear if there was a shooting in the theater before police officers arrived at the scene.

The cinema shooting comes around two weeks after a similar incident in a Lousiana cinema that saw two people killed before the gunman turned the weapon on himself.