Retired Policeman Shoots Man Over Texting Before Movie

Photo: Charles Crosbie

Chad Oulson, 43, was shot and killed by retired police officer Curtis Reeves, 71, during an argument over texting in a movie theater. Reeves was charged with second-degree murder for the shooting.

The altercation began on Jan. 13 when Reeves complained that he found it annoying that Oulson was texting during the previews to Lone Survivor. At the time, Oulson was texting his 22-month-old daughter’s babysitter.

“Just to think that in the blink of an eye, my whole world got shattered into a million pieces,” said Oulson’s wife Nicole Oulson during a news conference at her attorneys’ law office in Tampa. “And now I’m left trying to pick them up and put them all back together, and it‘s so hard and it’s so unbearable.”

Reeves claims he fired his gun in self-defense after he was hit with something in the face inside the movie theater. The theater is located in Wesley Chapel, 25 miles northeast of Tampa. Witnesses said they saw Chad Oulson throw a bag of popcorn at Reeves, and the incident escalated from there.

Photo: Lorianne DiSabato

Reeves asked Oulson several times to stop texting to no avail. Reeves first left the auditorium to

complain to management. He returned irritated, and the argument continued until the popcorn was thrown. Oulson was pronounced dead at a hospital and Nicole was treated for a gunshot wound to her hand. The same bullet that killed Oulson caused the hand wound.

“There is absolutely no reason that this should have escalated to the level that I did, especially as quickly as it did, said TJ Grimaldi, Nicole Oulson’s attorney. Reeves hopes to use Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which allows people to apply deadly force if it means to defend them.

Reeves was a captain for the Tampa Police Department until he retired in 1993. He helped to set up the department’s first SWAT team. He was with his wife at the theater the night of the shooting. Another young couple has come forward and said they believe Reeves turned them in for texting two weeks before the incident at the same theater.