Suspect shot inside movie theater

SAN DIEGO – Police shot and critically wounded a man Saturday suspected of chasing his girlfriend with a handgun across a shopping mall parking lot before ducking into a crowded movie theater where officers confronted him.

The shooting occurred inside the Reading Cinemas theater in northern San Diego around 3:50 p.m., and no moviegoers or officers were hurt, Officer David Stafford said.

He said officers went to an outdoor shopping center, where the theater is located, in response to a domestic violence call. No other details were immediately released.

A San Diego Fire-Rescue Department dispatcher said the suspect was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The owner of a business next to the theater said officers told him the armed man chased his girlfriend across a parking lot. Steve Krongard, the owner of the Nickel City arcade, said police shut down the lot, checked every car leaving the mall and went from business to business to look for the suspect until they found him in the theater.

U-T San Diego reported the shooting occurred during a screening of “Les Miserables.”

Witnesses were evacuated from the theater.