DA drops plans to seek death penalty in Pennsylvania theater shooting

A sign listing movie times at Regal Cinemas at Crossgates Mall shows two afternoon showings for the movie The Dark Knight Rises are sold out, in Albany, N.Y., on Friday, July 20, 2012. A gunman in a gas mask barged into a crowded Denver-area theater during a midnight premiere of the Batman movie on Friday, July 20, 2012, hurled a gas canister and then opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring at least 50 others in one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

By Associated Press

YORK, Pa. — Prosecutors have dropped plans to seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing a man and wounding a woman when he opened fire inside a movie theater in Pennsylvania almost three years ago.

Twenty-three-year-old Anu-Malik Johnson is charged with first- and third-degree murder, aggravated assault, reckless endangering and related offenses in the December 2019 shooting of 22-year-old Andre White Jr. at Regal Cinemas 13 in West Manchester Township.

A judge two years ago declined to bar York County prosecutors from seeking capital punishment, but this week the district attorney’s office dropped plans to do so, citing a mitigation report from the defense and other considerations.

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