Apr 6, 2019 4 min read

Washington County prosecutors said Friday that investigators are still interviewing witnesses in connection with the nonfatal shooting of a male teenager inside a North Franklin Township movie theater two weeks ago.

District Attorney Gene Vittone said some witnesses who were at the theater have yet to be interviewed about events that led to the teen being wounded in the lower leg late on March 23 at Regal Cinemas in Washington Crown Center.

The shooting occurred during a confrontation that reportedly began when a middle-aged white man, who’d brought a gun, got up from his seat to confront a group of six black teens that included the victim, during a showing of the film “Us.”

State police said the man is from Greene County, but haven’t identified him. No one has been charged.

“This investigation has been prolonged as there are witnesses who still need to be interviewed,” Vittone’s office said in a statement. “On the night of the incident, most witnesses left the theater immediately following the gunshot and were not available for the police to interview.”

One witness told the Observer-Reporter the day after the shooting that the middle-aged man had approached the teens, using profanity, before the fight.

Demonstrators gathered last Saturday outside the theater and on Monday in front of the county courthouse over the lack of charges against the Greene County man.

Protest organizers Trey Willis of Washington and Chris Ward, leader of the nonprofit advocacy group Washington County United, said they met with state police Sgt. Jeremy Barni, who supervises criminal investigations in the region, at the Washington barracks on Thursday.

The witness interviewed by the Observer-Reporter had gone to see the movie with her sister. She said the other teens had been “laughing whenever it was funny, and they were making comments to each other” but “not disrupting the movie at all” before the man yelled at them. She declined to be identified.

Ward and Willis said Barni acknowledged that the gun involved in the shooting was registered to the adult man who was involved. The pair also said Barni confirmed the man didn’t alert theater management, contrary to an account state police initially gave, and that he punched one of the teens in the head while they were still in their seats.

From inside the theater, the fight moved into the hallway leading to the exit. The man produced a gun he’d brought with him, despite a theater policy against patrons having weapons. It discharged during a struggle for the weapon. The teen and the man were both taken to hospitals before being released.

“I am of the firm belief that this man, according to witnesses on the scene, called the youth a n,” Willis said.

“Us,” a film by director Jordan Peele that features a predominantly black cast, opened that weekend.

The theater is owned by Regal Entertainment Group in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Authorities are releasing sparse details of what happened that night.

Trooper Forrest Allison, a state police spokesman, said he couldn’t confirm to whom the gun is registered. He said the man was the one who had the weapon with him.

Vittone’s office said most witnesses left the theater after the shot was fired, so it took time to locate many of them and get their accounts of what happened.

“There are several critical witnesses remaining who need to be interviewed by the Pennsylvania State Police,” he said. “This information is critical to an understanding of what occurred at the theater.”

Vittone said he’s bound by ethical rules when it comes to releasing information about an ongoing investigation because “if we end up not charging him, then we’ve put him in a bad light.”

First Assistant District Attorney Dennis Paluso said officials have interviewed multiple witnesses and plan to obtain more witness statements.

“Obviously, we recognize the sensitive nature of such an incident, and we want to make sure we get it right,” he said.

“That takes time. You have multiple people in a theater,” Paluso added. “There’s a lot of work that has to go into a case like this.”