EAGAN — Police say someone lit off a firework inside an Eagan movie theater during a screening Tuesday night, injuring several people.
The city’s police department was called to Emagine Eagan around 8:25 p.m., inside a theater that was showing the movie “The Black Phone.”
Police said someone “lit a large firework and tossed it in the theater before leaving.” Several people were treated for minor injuries at the scene.
Maddie Anderson was celebrating her 27th birthday with her boyfriend when the blast went off inside the theater.
“I started to hear what sounded like a fuse go off right over my shoulder almost, then it was a smaller boom kind of sound,” Anderson said. “Then there was an explosion right behind me, and instantly, I was like, ‘shooting, shooting, it’s a shooting. I’m going to die on my 27th birthday.'”
Anderson says she and her boyfriend escaped through an emergency exit before returning to the theater lobby and giving a statement to first responders.
“If there’s other people who think this would just be a funny prank or whatever, maybe take a second to consider the world we live in right now,” Anderson said. “Your first instinct when a firework goes off in a theater isn’t, ‘That’s so funny.’ You think, ‘I’m going to die.'”
By Wednesday morning, police were not able to give a description of the person or people responsible. Police have yet to make an arrest.
“We do not believe there is a threat to the public,” Eagan Sgt. Rich Evans said in a statement.
