According to an incident report, police received several calls Tuesday night reporting shots being fired inside the Sparks Century Theater downtown, where “The Bourne Legacy” was playing. Multiple police units and other emergency personnel rushed to the theater, but officers quickly determined that only one shot had been fired.
Witnesses told police the man’s gun had gone off when he adjusted his position in his seat. They said he quickly got up, apologized to other patrons sitting near him and left the theater before police arrived.
Officers later found the man at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Reno with a gunshot wound to his buttocks. He told them his gun — for which he had a valid concealed-carry permit — fell out of his pocket and discharged when it hit the floor.
There was no panic in the auditorium, CNN affiliate KRNV reported. Police said only five people out of the 30 in the theater even heard the gun go off.
The 56-year-old Sparks resident, whom police did not name, cooperated with investigators, said police, who added he may be charged later with illegally discharging a firearm.
On July 20, a man opened fire inside a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 and wounding 58 during a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.” Former graduate student James Holmes, 24, faces charges in that case.
In a suburb of Cleveland, another man was arrested on August 4 after allegedly carrying weapons into a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” there. An attorney for Scott A. Smith said his client was carrying the weapons for self-protection.
