Man shouts 'Heil Hitler' at Baltimore theater, causing panic

BALTIMORE (AP) — A man laced the atmosphere of a Baltimore theater with menace when he began shouting "Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!" during intermission of a classic play set in a Jewish village in czarist Russia. The patron's pro-Nazi and pro-Trump outburst during a Wednesday night production of "Fiddler on the Roof" sent panicked people running for the exits.

Rich Scherr, a technology and financial journalist who was one of over 1,000 people attending the Wednesday night performance at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre, said a man seated in the balcony was behind the commotion. He described stunned audience members initially freezing in confusion and fear when the man began shouting minutes into the intermission.

"Everything just got really, really quiet. And then I heard this guy screaming: "Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!" he said in a phone interview today. Other patrons told him they also heard the man yell about "MAGA," President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan.

A few dozen people started running for the exits, according to Scherr, while others began calling out for security. Scherr said he braced for the possibility of gun violence in the packed theater. "You don't want to think the worst, but I was preparing to react in case of gunfire," he said.

The theater scare comes a few weeks after a gunman fatally shot 11 people inside a Pittsburgh synagogue. The suspect in that shooting, Robert Bowers, 46, expressed hatred of Jews during the rampage and later told police that "all these Jews need to die," authorities said. It also comes days after the FBI released a report showing a 17 percent spike in U.S. hate crimes in 2017 —with a 37 percent increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes.