Frightened patrons injured after pranksters enter movie theater with leaf blower

Edwards Big Newport 6 in Newport Beach, California.

(Image credit: Facebook.com/KTLA)

published 11 August 2015

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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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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