Chad Oulson was shot and killed after throwing popcorn at a man following a verbal altercation in a movie theatre. In 2022, the shooter was acquitted on the basis of Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law
Just before 1:30pm on January 13, 2014, at a boutique cinema in Wesley Chapel, Florida, Gulf War veteran Chad Oulson got into an argument with a man sat nearby who had berated him for having his phone out and texting while trailers for upcoming movies were playing on screen.
Oulson became irate, telling the man that he was sending a message to a babysitter who was looking after he and his wife’s 22-month-old daughter whilst the couple had gone to catch a movie.
The man, retired police captain and SWAT commander Curtis J. Reeves, then left the theatre to raise the issue with management, but the verbal altercation quickly restarted when he returned to his seat. It was now Oulson’s turn to scold the other man, who he chided for a complaint that he viewed as a petty escalation in retaliation to his texting.
As the argument continued, Oulson then turned in his seat and threw a handful of popcorn at Reeves, striking him in the face. In response, Reeves immediately pulled out his handgun and fatally shot Oulson once in the chest. He was taken to hospital where he died later that day.
In the subsequent murder trial, Reeves’ legal team argued that he had shot Oulson in self-defence, basing their contention on Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which provides that an individual has no duty to attempt to remove themselves from an apparently deadly scenario before reacting with lethal force.
Despite a judge initially rejecting the defence in March 2017, the defence successfully appealed the decision and Reeves’ fate was left in the hands of the jury. After a lengthy court process and numerous delays, the conclusion of the trial came 8 years after the initial incident when the jury acquitted Reeves on the basis that he had acted in self-defence.
There are a few notable aspects of witness testimony from the incident, much of which was excluded from the trial on the basis of hearsay:
- Reeves himself had also apparently been texting prior to berating Oulson for doing the same
- He had allegedly been in another verbal altercation over someone texting in a movie theatre 2 weeks prior to the shooting
- Reeves’ wife, who was sat next to him, was heard saying “That was no cause to shoot anyone” immediately afterwards, to which he responded “You shut your f**king mouth and don’t say another word”
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