November 2, 2013 -- Updated 0904 GMT (1704 HKT)
It was unclear early Saturday when Los Angeles International Airport's
terminal 3 would reopen after the bloodshed and panic from a deadly
shooting there. FULL STORY
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PHOTOS
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WHO IS THE SUSPECT?
November 2, 2013 -- Updated 1640 GMT (0040 HKT)
Police officers and emergency response officials meet outside Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport after gunshots were reported inside the terminal on Friday, November 1.
HIDE CAPTION
Gunfire at Los Angeles airport
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The TSA officer killed was Gerardo Hernandez, 39, the agency says
- Official: Information on the suspect indicates anti-government sentiment
- He allegedly shot three people, one fatally, before being shot himself
"Hey, are you TSA?" some heard the alleged shooter, 23-year-old Paul Anthony Ciancia, ask.
As travelers answered "no," that they did not work for the Transportation Security Administration, the gunman would move on.
Leon Saryan was one of
those questioned. He told CNN's Anderson Cooper that the man he'd just
seen shoot a TSA officer "calmly" walked toward him and asked, "TSA?"
Video appears to show cuffed LAX suspect
How the LAX shooting unfolded
A look at the security response at LAX
LAX police: This was a lone shooter
"I just shook my head," Saryan said. "And he kept going."
Whatever the reason, the
suspect, armed with what police say was an assault rifle, opened fire in
Los Angeles International Airport's Terminal 3, killing one and sending
dozens scattering before he was wounded and captured.
He had enough ammunition to "have literally killed everyone in that terminal," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said.
Investigators were digging into his background to find out clues about his motives.
The materials found on
the suspect included a rant that appeared to refer to the New World
Order as well as anti-TSA and anti-government claims, a federal law
enforcement official said Saturday.
It's not clear what gave
rise to the references, and federal investigators have found no known
links to known groups or anything in the suspect's background to explain
them. The New World Order is generally considered to be a conspiracy
theory in which people suspect a group of elites is conspiring to form
an authoritarian, one-world government.
The incident disrupted
flights and inconvenienced passengers. As of Saturday morning, Terminal 3
remained closed, and it was unclear when it would reopen.
In a message on Twitter
on Saturday morning, the airport said that from the start of the
incident around 9:30 am Friday through midnight, an estimated 1,550
scheduled flights with about 167,050 passengers were "impacted."
The effects of the
shooting are being felt on the opposite coast, where the Port Authority
of New York and New Jersey increased patrols.
A TSA officer killed
The TSA said Gerardo
Hernandez, who would have turned 40 next week, was shot and killed --
the first employee of that relatively new agency to be slain in the line
of duty. He was working as a travel document checker at the time, TSA
workers' union and federal sources say.
LAX witness: I heard 'three loud pops'
Face-to-face with LAX gunman
Video shows chaos inside LAX
LAX witness: Not too soon to discuss guns
Two other TSA officers were also shot, one in the leg, authorities said.
TSA Administrator John
Pistole will travel to Los Angeles, where he is expected to meet with
the family of the slain officer, along with members of the TSA
workforce.
The suspected gunman was
detained after being shot in the chest multiple times, according to an
intelligence source briefed by Los Angeles police. As of Friday evening,
he was receiving medical attention at a hospital, according to FBI
Special Agent in Charge David Bowdich.
Ronald Reagan UCLA
Medical Center said that it received three male victims -- one in
critical condition and two in fair condition. One of the two in fair
condition suffered gunshot wounds, while another had an unspecified
injury, said Dr. Lynne McCullough, an emergency physician at the Los
Angeles hospital. One of them had been released by Friday afternoon; one
of the others who remained at the hospital was Ciancia, according to
the intelligence source.
Two other patients were transported to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, said David Klurad, a trauma surgeon there.
Klurad described one as a
"middle-aged" person with minor injuries from being shot in the
shoulder. The other had no signs of life when he arrived at the
hospital, the surgeon added.
Family concerns
Another clue to
Ciancia's state of mind came from his family. He lives in Los Angeles,
but his family back in New Jersey were concerned about him, said Allen
Cummings, chief of police in Pennsville, New Jersey.
Ciancia's family became
concerned in recent days after he sent his brother and father "angry,
rambling" texts venting about the government, living in Los Angeles and
his unhappiness generally, an intelligence source said.
But despite the unsettling text, Ciancia's family was still surprised by Friday's events.
"They're upset," Cummings told reporters. "I mean this is a shock to them, it's a shock to our community."
Terror in the terminal
Transportation Security Administration:
-Agency was established in the wake of 9/11. Responsibility for civil aviation security was shifted from the Federal Aviation Administration to the TSA.
- The TSA employs nearly 50,000 security officers, inspectors, air marshals and managers.
-They screen more than 1.8 million passengers each day at more than 450 airports nationwide.
-Since the agency's inception, the TSA has screened more than 4 billion checked bags for explosives.
-Depending on their pay grade, TSA employees can make between $17,000 and $155,000.
-Agency was established in the wake of 9/11. Responsibility for civil aviation security was shifted from the Federal Aviation Administration to the TSA.
- The TSA employs nearly 50,000 security officers, inspectors, air marshals and managers.
-They screen more than 1.8 million passengers each day at more than 450 airports nationwide.
-Since the agency's inception, the TSA has screened more than 4 billion checked bags for explosives.
-Depending on their pay grade, TSA employees can make between $17,000 and $155,000.
The shooting caused what airport police Chief Patrick Gannon described as a "large amount of chaos."
People ran for their lives and took shelter wherever they could as authorities pursued the gunman.
Chuck Ocheret was among those in the busy airport when he heard two "loud pops."
"Then I heard this mad
rush of people, and there was a stampede of people coming from this
direction," Ocheret said. "Nobody really knew what was going on."
An otherwise normal day
in the airport's Terminal 3 turned upside down around 9:20 a.m. (12:20
p.m. ET), as the suspect approached a checkpoint.
There, he "pulled an assault rifle out of a bag and began to open fire," Gannon said.
Saryan, the passenger
who saw the gunman, had just cleared the TSA checkpoint and was reaching
for his shoes and belt when shots rang out, prompting "everybody (to)
hit the ground and ... run." A TSA officer grabbed Saryan's shoes and
started running alongside him, before the gunman grazed the officer with
a bullet.
"I went and cowered in a corner," Saryan said.
The suspect kept moving
down Terminal 3, carrying three magazines for his weapon, according to
the intelligence source briefed by Los Angeles police. He began running
down Terminal 3.
He had company. Gannon
said two officers from his department responded "within seconds after
the shooting started" and ran off in pursuit of the suspect.
Traveler Vernon Cardenas
was sitting at one end of the terminal when he heard noise and saw a
mass of people running toward him. He and others bolted through a
kicked-open exit door and ran onto the tarmac -- believing it was safer
there.
The bloodshed finally
ended when law enforcement shot the gunman in the circular area where
Cardenas had been, the intelligence source said. They didn't take any
chances with the wounded suspect either, handcuffing him to a gurney as
he was carried out. Authorities said they found more than 100 rounds of
unspent ammunition.
The gunfire was so
unexpected and sudden that many panicked passengers left their
belongings as they ran out of the terminal to safety.
LAX officials tweeted
that passengers would be able to return sometime Saturday to pick up the
items they discarded in the chaos.
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