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By Polly Mosendz
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Shots were fired at the Carmike 8 Cinemas in Antioch, Tennessee, southeast of central Nashville. The Metro Nashville Police Department confirmed the suspected gunman had been killed. The fire department, police and ambulances reported to the scene just before 2 p.m. CDT.
The gunman was identified as a 51-year-old white man from the area, his name was not given. Don Aaron, the Nashville Police spokesman, said the man was previously in a public place and may have said something alarming, though his comments were not made public by authorities.
Two police officers were stationed nearby to the theater and were approached by a witness to the shooting asking for help. They entered the theater. One of the officers and the gunman exchanged gunfire, killing the gunman. The officers were not identified.
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The gunman also had a hatchet and pepper spray, local authorities said in a brief press conference. The gunman had two backpacks, both of which are being investigated by Hazmat teams. One backpack was on the front of the gunman's body and the second was placed to the side. The contents of the backpack remain unknown. The backpack on the gunman's body will be destroyed by a bomb squad, as Aaron said they were "uncomfortable" with its contents.
The gunman was wearing a face mask to protect from the effects of the pepper spray. Authorities said there was a substantial amount of pepper spray released in the theater.
Three people, two women and one man, were injured in the attack, all by pepper spray. Aaron said the women, 53 and 17, who were sprayed were red in the face due to the pepper spray exposure. The man, 58, had a small bruise on his shoulder or arm, the public information officer said. The hatchet is believed to have caused this injury.
"There were people out on the sidewalk walking back and forth like something had happened and I had no clue what was going on," an employee of Republic Finance, a business across the street from the theater, told Newsweek. "I didn't see any blood, I just saw a girl on the sidewalk and there were police around her. She was just rocking back and forth like she was panicked."
"All we saw were police coming in. I kept everybody away from the windows," Alexia Humphrey, the general manager of a nearby restaurant, told Newsweek in a phone interview. "We didn't know anything until we saw the news."
The incident happened in a showing of Mad Max: Fury Road, which started at 1:15 p.m CDT.
Antioch is under Nashville government jurisdiction and has a population of just under 80,000.
Local authorities and hospitals did not immediately reply to request for comment.
In late July, a gunman opened fired in a Lafayette, Louisiana, movie theater, killing two women before turning the gun on himself. The Lafayette shooting was considered copycat of the Aurora theater shooting, where James Holmes killed 12 people and injured 70 on July 20, 2012. Holmes was found guilty on 165 charges on July 17 and could be sentenced to death.
Additional reporting by Max Kutner, Victoria Bekiempis and Billy Johnson.
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