Man called in bomb threat after getting kicked out of Boston movie theater, police say

Boston police arrested a 55-year-old man on Tuesday after he allegedly called in a bomb threat at a downtown movie theater.

Christopher McFadden, of Beacon Hill, is accused of making the bomb threat following his removal from the AMC theater on Tremont Street for harassing an employee, the Boston Police Department said in a release.

Police responded to the call shortly before 4 p.m. Dispatchers reported an anonymous male caller claimed to be a federal agent and said, through a purported secretary, that there was a bomb at the theater.

Theater security told responding officers that minutes before the call, a theater employee had requested assistance with a male patron who was making inappropriate comments toward a female employee. The man, believed to be under the influence of an unknown substance, had been escorted from the theater prior to officers arriving.

Security stated that while the man was being removed from the theater, he displayed two sharpened chopsticks and threatened a theater manager before leaving on foot on Tremont Street.

An officer reviewed the theater’s surveillance footage and identified a suspect on camera leaving the theater and traveling through Downtown Crossing into a restaurant on Washington Street, where he was found and taken into custody.

Officers conducted a pat and frisk on the suspect and located a cellphone. A callback to the number used to call in the bomb threat confirmed it matched the phone in the suspect’s possession, police said.

A police K-9 confirmed the suspect was not in possession of explosives.

McFadden was transported to the Nashua Street Jail for booking. He was expected to be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court and faces the following charges: bomb/hijack threat with serious public alarm; disturbing the peace, subsequent offense; and warrant, delay of service.