Police received a call about the shooting at the Grand Theater in Lafayette at approximately 7:30 p.m. The attack occurred 20 minutes into the 7 p.m. screening of the comedy "Trainwreck," when what witness Katie Domingue described as "an older white man" stood up and began shooting. About 100 people were in the theater at the time of the attack. "I almost thought it was part of the movie at first," witness Janel Fernell told CNN. Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft said the shooting was contained to one room theater occupied by approximately 100 people.
The motive for the attack is not known at this time.Four responding officers engaged the suspect, entering the theater to the sound of gunfire "less than a minute" after receiving the call, Craft said. Officers found the shooter dead, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"We heard a loud pop we thought was a firecracker," Katie Domingue of Carencro said. She was at the 7 p.m. showing of "Trainwreck" with her fiance, Joshua Doggett, in Theater No. 14. About 20 minutes into the movie, Domingue said, she heard a loud noise. She said she saw "an older white man" standing up and shooting down, not in her direction. "He wasn't saying anything. I didn't hear anybody screaming either," Domingue said. She heard about six shots, she said, before she and Doggett ran to the nearest exit, leaving behind her shoes and purse.
The scene in the theater parking lot reflected the mayhem of the evening. News media had been moved offsite and were reporting from in front of a nearby coffee shop, Johnston Street Java. The parking lot itself was filled with emergency vehicles, including a Haz-Mat unit. Authorities also closed down the Grand 14 on Kaliste Saloom in what they said was an exercise in caution.
The parking lot was cleared shortly before 10 p.m. there, with four State Police units on the scene. "We don't know if this was just a random act or whether it was a domestic situation," Craft said, saying the investigation was not far enough along. The company operates multiplex stadium-seating movie theaters in Louisiana, Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.
