Family Man Shot While Watching ‘Benjamin Button’

The shooter, James Joseph Cialella

It happens every time you go to a theatre to watch a movie. A certain person and/or persons are either talking, texting or are just being unaware of the other members in the audience.  You usually have a couple of choices when this happens: You can try and ignore it; you can tell management and hope that they can deal with it; or you can say something yourself…maybe not “SHUT THE FRAK UP”, but, “Do you mind SHUTING THE FRAK UP”. Then of course there’s that odd person that decides to shoot the disruptive person in the arm…wait, what?

A man by the name of Joseph Cialella Jr actually shot a man in front of the rest of the audience, (which included the man’s family), in the arm. Luckily the man is reportedly in well condition; though I doubt that his children are the same after this experience.

The details of this charming story go like this:

29-year-old James Joseph Cialella Jr went to see the new David Fincher movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttonat the UA Riverview Stadium 17 movie theater in South Philadelphia on Christmas. The family in front of Cialella began to talk during the film, so he asked them to be quiet. But that didn’t stop the younger son from making comments. Cialella even threw popcorn angrily at the talkative son, but the boy did not stop. Cialella became so angry that he took out a Kel-Tec .380-caliber handgun and shot the father in the left arm.

As others were running from the theatre, Mr. Cialella  sat back down in his seat and continued to watch the movie. The police were called and arrived shortly after, less than an hour into the film.

James Joseph Cialella Jr is being charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and weapons violations.

~ by Simon on December 28, 2008.