A 34-year-old man was arrested this week after police say he pepper-sprayed another moviegoer at a Burbank AMC theater for using a cellphone during a film.
Online jail records show that Matthew Ware of Los Angeles was booked into the Burbank Jail on a misdemeanor battery charge and released the following morning.
A moviegoer told KTLA that he called the police after he heard the hissing sound of an aerosol spray, moments before someone screamed that they had been pepper-sprayed. Police found Ware in the lobby and arrested him. Images posted on social media showed officers handcuffing a man wearing cargo shorts and a black T-shirt from the “Terrifier” horror franchise.
At least two other moviegoers were treated at a hospital for exposure to the spray, KTLA reported.
Predictably, the incident prompted scores of sometimes snarky comments on social media.
Some commenters rushed to Ware’s defense, airing their own frustrations and experiences with people who violate an unwritten but sacrosanct rule among serious filmgoers: Phones need to be silenced and stay off during a movie.
Others were less sympathetic.
“People on their phones in the theater are beyond idiots, but you cannot go pepper spraying them,” one user wrote on X.
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