John Houser: identified by the police as the shooter.

Reuters/Lafayette, Louisiana

A jobless 59-year-old man whose estranged family feared him was identified by authorities yesterday as the gunman who fatally shot two people in a rampage at crowded movie theatre in central Louisiana before turning the gun on himself as police closed in.
The suspected gunman, John R Houser, who police described as a drifter from Alabama who was staying at a local motel, opened fire with a .40 calibre handgun about 20 minutes into the film Trainwreck, sending panicked theatregoers ducking behind seats and running for the exits. One woman pulled the fire alarm.
“This is a normal movie theatre in a normal part of a normal town. This is Anywhere, USA,” said Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who went to the crime scene in the city of Lafayette to meet with law enforcement and victims. “This just shows these senseless acts of violence can literally happen anywhere.”
Before purchasing a ticket for the 7pm show, Houser parked his blue Lincoln Continental, having switched its licence plates, near the theatre’s exit and stashed a set of keys on the tyre in what police said appeared to be preparations for a quick getaway. Disguises including wigs and glasses were later uncovered in his motel room.
“It is apparent that he was intent on shooting and escaping,” Lafayette police chief Jim Craft said.
Houser, who police said came from Phenix City, Alabama, never made it back to his car, instead shooting himself as police swarmed the Grand 16 Theatre, a multiplex located along main thoroughfare in Lafayette.
Police said they did not know why the suspect launched the attack in Lafayette, roughly 90km southwest of Baton Rouge.
“Certainly it exists out there that we may not find a motive but that’s not our goal right now,” Col Mike Edmonson of the Louisiana State Police told reporters.
The shooting was the latest in a series of mass killings in the US, including the fatal shooting of five US servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the massacre of nine African Americans at a Charleston, South Carolina, church.
The latest act of apparently random gun violence came almost three years to the day after 12 people were killed at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado.
It is likely to heat up a festering political debate in the US over access to weapons and the right to bear arms, protected under the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.
President Barack Obama, who was travelling to Kenya, received a briefing about the shooting during a refuelling stop in Germany, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
“The thoughts and prayers of everyone at the White House, including the President and First Lady, are with the community of Lafayette, Louisiana, especially the families of those who were killed,” a statement said.
Authorities said seven were wounded in the Lafayette rampage, three of them critically. The two victims were identified as Mayci Breaux, 21, from Franklin, Louisiana, and Jillian Johnson, 33, from Lafayette.
Two of the wounded victims were teachers, Jindal said, one of whom told him that she survived the attack because her friend rolled on top of her as bullets rang out. That teacher then managed to pull a fire alarm in the theatre, he said.
Houser had a volatile relationship with his family, who said he had a history of mental illness. He was also a political conservative who joined the Tea Party. He was described as a “gadfly” who voiced his views on talk radio and ran for local political office.
In April 2008, he was ordered not to contact his wife, daughter and other relatives after they filed a request for a protective order against him in Carroll County, Georgia.