Moviegoers shaken after shots fired

Police are investigating a pre-arranged cellphone sale that led to a shooting Saturday night in front of an Altamonte Springs theater — terrifying dozens of panicked moviegoers inside the building.

Altamonte Springs Police spokeswoman Evelyn Estevez said a man and a woman in a silver Nissan are suspected of attempting to rob a cellphone from a separate couple who agreed to sell the device.

An altercation then broke out in the parking lot of the Altamonte Springs Mall’s AMC theater, Estevez said, and the man selling the cellphone fired about five shots at the couple who tried to take the phone. The couple in the Nissan then fled the scene.

“We don’t know if there was anyone who was injured inside the [Nissan] vehicle,” Estevez told members of the media on Saturday. She added that the couple who tried to take the phone from the shooter also briefly “dragged him” in the parking lot, and they could be charged with strong-armed robbery.

Authorities did not order to evacuate the theater, Estevez said.

But this did not stop confused customers shaken by the recent mass shooting in a South Florida

high school that claimed 17 lives to be consumed by chaos.

Fito Valentín, a 25-year-old teacher from Boca Raton, was inside the AMC Theater watching “Black Panther” when a handful of theater employees yelled for people to get out of the room because of an emergency situation.

“It’s a very closed space before the movie starts. And I started thinking, ‘Oh my god, what if something like a shooting were to happen?’ … But then I shook the thought away from my head,” said Valentín, who said he drew on his knowledge from an active shooter training he attended just a few days ago.

“Nobody knew what was going on … I saw people hiding behind bushes, kids crying, adults yelling for their loved ones,” Valentín said. “It was absolutely terrifying.”

Estevez said the shooting was an isolated incident and authorities are asking anyone with information to contact Altamonte Springs Police. The shooter and the woman who was with him were taken into custody and are cooperating with authorities, Estevez said.

Allana Katz, 26, said she was inside the movie theater’s lobby when the shots were fired outside.

“Everyone started screaming and running,” Katz said. “It was so scary and surreal.”