Following Friday's massacre at a Dark Knight screening in Aurora, Colorado, movie-goers have been a bit on-edge. And who could blame them? Theaters in the summer of 2012 have become the new airplanes. Even the LAPD stated it was going undercover at local movie houses — like air marshals of the aisles.

So, then, if what cops say about 52-year-old Clark Tabor is true, he's either a news-deaf idiot or a psycho-in-training.

During a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Norwalk he knelt down in the second row and said, according to witnesses and deputies:

Does anyone have a gun? … I should go off like in Colorado.

Yeah — not funny.

It happened about 5:15 p.m. Sunday at AMC Norwalk 20 Theaters, according to an L.A. County Sheriff's Department statement.


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A security guard spotted the suspect on his knees in the second row, backpack on, deputies said. Not what you want to see.

Witnesses were afraid Tabor was going to pull a gun out that bag and go off, sheriff's officials said.

Deputies dispatched to the scene arrested Tabor and searched his backpack. No guns, they said. They went to his apartment and sniffed around as a precaution. All was clear.

But Tabor was still arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats, deputies said. He also had warrants. All that has apparently kept Tabor behind bars in lieu of $50,000 bail. He's due in court in Bellflower today.

Sheriff's Capt. Pat Maxwell:

A witness saw and heard strange activity and reported it immediately. This is exactly the kind of help law enforcement needs to help protect the public.

They also need people not to be retards and realize that theaters are going to be sensitive places, especially during Batman screenings, for a while.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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