Retired Florida Police Captain Acquitted in Movie Theater Shooting Death Eight Years Ago in Which he Claimed Self Defense

Curtis Reeves is a retired Florida police captain. 8 years ago, he was involved in an incident that lead to the tragic shooting death of a man in a movie theater. Chad Oulson, the man who died, was reportedly out on a date with his wife.

She was also injured in the shooting but survived. The story leading up to what happened is truly sad and sounds like it’s something that should have never happened. Nevertheless, the jury has made its decision.

That decision was to acquit Reeves of second-degree murder and aggravated battery. During the lead-up to the incident, Reeves and Oulson had gotten into an argument about noise from cell phone text messages during the movie previews.

Reeves reportedly told Oulson to put his phone away. Oulson’s widow was hoping for a guilty verdict in this case, but unfortunately for her, that is not what happened after a jury deliberated following a nine-day trial.

Reeves felt there was a threat during the argument for some reason, while the prosecuting attorney claimed: “no one is ever above the law”. Reeves was 71 years old at the time. Reeves’s defense team made the case that his police experience helped him in determining whether or not there was a threat to his well-being.

Oulson had apparently thrown a bag of popcorn at Reeves after the argument over the text message noises going off in the movie theater escalated. Reeves told police he was “in fear of being attacked”.

There was some debate about whether or not Oulson has also potentially thrown a cell phone at Reeves but it remains unclear if that part occurred or not. It seems that no one came out a winner in this truly sad story and whatever folks may think of Reeves, he is almost 90 years old now anyway.

CNN reported in part:

The case garnered widespread attention at the time of the killing, partly because of Reeves’ self-defense claim under Florida’s “stand your ground” law, a claim which was ultimately denied by a judge.

There were various reasons as to why the case was delayed so long. Various motions, pretrial hearings, and then the Covid-19 pandemic certainly contributed to the long gap in between the incident and the ultimate acquittal.