The retired Tampa police captain charged with shooting and killing a fellow moviegoer over a texting dispute inside a Florida theater on Monday allegedly had another run-in with a moviegoer a few weeks earlier, prosecutors said.
About three weeks ago, 71-year-old Curtis Reeves had reportedly seen another theater patron texting and "glared at her the entire time throughout the movie" during a screening. Prosecutors said they heard from her during Reeves' first court appearance, CNN reported.
Reeves followed the woman and "made her very uncomfortable" when she went to use the restroom, prosecutors said.
"He became just upset about the whole situation and kept staring and kept giving us dirty looks," Jamira Dixon of Wesley Chapel, the Tampa suburb where Monday's shooting took place, told CNN affiliate WTSP.
According to CNN, Dixon caught wind of Monday's shooting on the radio while she was driving.
"I had to pull over the car because ... it could have been us," she said. "It was just so close to home. It really makes you think how things could have went."
On a charge of second-degree murder, Reeves made his first court appearance on Tuesday, CNN reported.
Attorney Richard Escobar, tried to persuade Circuit Court Judge Lynn Tepper that Reeves was the victim in the incident and 43-year-old Chad Oulson was the "aggressor." But Tepper said there was no evidence to support the claim that the shooter was a victim. Police said despite Reeves' claim he was in fear for his safety, this was not a case for Florida's "stand your ground" defense, according to CNN.
"Working with the state attorney's office it was determined that stand-your-ground does not fly here in this case," Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said.
According to CNN, theater violence is not surprising anymore. Twelve people were killed two years ago when a shooting massacre took place in Aurora, Colo. Having banned handguns, posters of zero weapons policy are also posted on the front doors of movie theaters as a way to step up safety measures, Cobb Theater, which owns the Grove 16 and more than 120 other theaters, said.
"The question is going to become: how are they enforcing them? Is a sign sufficient to give notice that you shall not bring a handgun on our premises?" CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos asked.
There are theater chains that take it a step further, employing security guards at some locations to keep patrons safe, CNN reported.
"If somebody were to bring in a bag, for instance, they're immediately going to spot something like that or if they're acting unusual or nervous they would spot something like this, whereas a metal detector is only looking at one thing," according to Howard Levinson, the president of Expert Security Consulting.
