James Russell "Rusty" Houser methodically shot 11 people in a Lafayette, Louisiana, movie theater on Thursday night using a handgun he legally purchased from an Alabama pawn shop, authorities said Friday.
Houser stood up in the theater where the comedy "Trainwreck" was showing and fired off one 10-round clip, Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craig said at a press conference.
"This was slow and methodical," Gov. Bobby Jindal said. "This was not a single burst."
Houser left the theater through a side door and headed toward his car, a 1995 Lincoln, but saw a police cruiser arrive in the parking lot, Craig said.
Houser, 59, reloaded his handgun, re-entered the theater and fired three more rounds, Craig said.
Then Houser, a law school graduate with a history of mental problems, fatally shot himself in the head, Craig said.
"Out of 20 rounds he shot 11 people, but some people suffered multiple wounds," Craig said. "One person was shot four times."
Two women in the theater were killed and nine were injured. Craig said four of the wounded have been released from hospitals. Of the five still hospitalized, four are in stable condition and one is critical, he said.
The gun Houser used, a Highpoint .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol, was legally purchased in February 2014 from a pawn shop in Phenix City, Alabama, Craig said, citing the the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Police don't know why Houser opened fire in the theater or why he came to Lafayette, about 500 miles from his stomping grounds in Georgia and Alabama.
Besides an uncle who died about 35 years ago, Houser, 59, didn't have any known connection to the city of 120,000.
He arrived on July 2 or 3 and had been staying in a motel, Craig said. He had just borrowed $5,000 from his mother, said Louisiana State Police Col. Michael Edmonson, but "he needed money."
Craig said authorities think Houser even went to a church in Lake Charles and obtained food and money. He'd been talking to some locals about opening an oil-change business, the chief said.
But he never said or did anything that presaged the outbreak of violence.
Craig said police are researching Houser's movements and reading his journals and his online political blogs, in which he railed against government. There's no indication he had an accomplice, Edmonson said.
At the press conference in the theater parking lot, Jindal, a presidential candidate, was asked what he would do to stem gun violence. He declined to talk about that, saying, "It hasn't been 24 hours. Let's focus on these families."
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/us/louisiana-theater-shooting/