NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. (WTSP) -- Was a 74-year-old man defending himself when he fatally shot another man after an argument in a Pasco County movie theater?
That will be the issue when Curtis Reeves is the subject of a "stand your ground" hearing in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court on Monday. He is charged in the death of Chad Oulson, who was scrolling through a cell phone before a showing of "Lone Survivor" and that activity provoked a deadly confrontation, according to the Tampa Bay Times. If not, Reeves faces a second-degree murder charge.
Here is a recounting of the events in the theater, according to the Times:
Oulson, 43, and his wife were already seated when Reeves and his wife arrived sat down directly behind them. Oulson scrolled through his cell phone as the previews appeared.
Reeves leaned forward and asked him to turn it off, he later told investigators. Oulson responded with an expletive, he said.
Oulson kept looking at the phone. Reeves got up and left to tell a manager. A minute later, he returned. Oulson had put the phone away.
"I said, 'I see you put it away,'" Reeves later told detectives. "'I told the manager for no reason.'"
Oulson, according to Reeves, said something to the effect of, "if it was any of your ... business, I was texting my daughter."
Oulson rose on the seat and moved toward Reeves, he said. Reeves put a hand out and shrunk backward.
"He kept on hollering," Reeves said. "And it led me to believe he was going to kick my a--."
Reeves felt his head move to the right. His glasses were knocked sideways, he said. Popcorn flew.
"He hit me with something," he told detectives. "I don't know if it was his fist."
In one quick motion, Reeves drew the gun and fired.
Oulson was shot in the chest. He died at the scene.
"As soon as I pulled the trigger, I said 'oh, shoot. This is stupid,'" Reeves told detectives. "But again, I'm 71 years old. I don't need an a-- whipping from a younger man."
An off-duty Sumter County sheriff's deputy was sitting a few seats down from Reeves and took the weapon from him.
Vivian Reeves, in a separate interview, said she turned away as Oulson approached. She didn't see the confrontation.
Detectives asked why she thought her husband fired the gun.
"I don't know," she said. "He was in law enforcement 20 years and he never shot anybody. ... I don't know if he thought he was going to hurt him. That's what I would think, is he thought he was going to be hurt."
Oulson's wife, Nicole, had her arm on his chest when the gun went off. The bullet grazed her middle finger.
Later that day, at St. Joseph's Hospital, she told detectives her version on events, which differed from the story Reeves told.
When Oulson confronted Reeves, she said, she put her arm up and tried to tell him it wasn't worth it. She heard yelling, but didn't see any hitting or shoving.
"He was just very rude from the beginning," she said of Reeves. "Just belligerent. My husband was calm and just said, 'It'll just take a minute. I'll turn it off. The movie hasn't even started.' And he was just nasty."
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