Frightened patrons injured after pranksters enter movie theater with leaf blower

Three moviegoers sustained minor injuries when they fled from a theater they thought was under attack.

On Saturday, at least two people opened an emergency exit door at the Edwards Big Newport 6 in Newport Beach, California, intent on terrifying the audience watching The Gift, police say. "All of a sudden someone comes in screaming from the emergency exit...he waves something in the air and cranks it and everyone thinks it's a chainsaw," witness Kyndall Aldama told KTLA. Another witness, Katrina Wolfe, said: "All I could think of was James Holmes and the Aurora, Colorado, movie shooting.... My boyfriend and I believed that this was a person with a weapon — probably a gun — and fully expected shooting to start at any moment."

Several moviegoers called 911 to report the disturbance, and the injured parties were treated by emergency responders. Investigators said in a statement they determined the suspects entered the emergency exit with a leaf blower and "revved" the engine to "create a loud and disturbing noise." During the chaos, the suspects — described by police as two or three white or Hispanic men ranging in age from their late teens to early 30s — fled through the emergency exit.

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