A man shouted, “Heil Hitler!” and threw up a Nazi salute during the intermission of a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” on Wednesday night.
Rich Scherr, who was in the audience when the incident occurred at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre, tweeted that the man also issued “pro-Trump statements,” which reportedly included “Heil Trump” and “MAGA” [Make America Great Again].
Sick, sad world. A man stands at intermission of tonight’s performance of Fiddler in Baltimore and yells, “Heil Hitler,” along with pro-Trump references. pic.twitter.com/slDcPwF7re
— Rich Scherr (@writerguyRich) November 15, 2018
Scherr told the Baltimore Sun that “people started running” when they heard the man.
“I’ll be honest, I was waiting to hear a gunshot,” Scherr said. “I thought, ‘Here we go.’”
Another audience member, Samit Verma, told the Sun that “some people were in tears.”
Connor Drew, who was in the lobby at the time of the incident, told The New York Times, “I wasn’t afraid of violence. I was just more afraid of the situation in general and seeing how people were shaken by it.”
The man was eventually escorted out of the theater by security, but at that point Scherr said he wasn’t able to “pay attention” to the rest of the performance after that.
The man has reportedly been identified as 58-year-old Anthony Derlunas; according to the Times, Derlunas was inebriated at the time and is claiming what he shouted was out of his hatred for President Trump.
Derlunas received a stop ticket from police over the matter, which does not have any sort of penalty attached to it.
The theater apologized to its attendees:
We do not tolerate behavior like we saw last night during intermission at “Fiddler.” Security handled the situation swiftly. Our venue has a proud tradition of providing shared experiences to people from all walks of life and we will continue that tradition.
— Hippodrome Theatre (@HippodromeBway) November 15, 2018
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonthan Greenblatt tweeted:
Just a few weeks after Pittsburgh and days after the FBI released 2017 hate crime data, yet another sign that these are not normal times. https://t.co/1pFU4fuz3j
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) November 15, 2018
