Shooting At Ft. Lauderdale Airport Leaves 5 Dead
The suspect is in custody.
- A gunman opened fire in a baggage claim area at the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport.
- At least five people were killed and eight were injured, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.
- The suspected shooter has been taken into custody. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) identified him as Esteban Santiago.
A gunman opened fire Friday at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, killing five people and injuring eight others before being taken into custody, authorities said.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) identified the shooter in a television interview as Esteban Santiago. Despite some reports to the contrary, no other attacks took place in different parts of the airport, said Broward Sheriff Scott Israel.
The shooting occurred just before 1 p.m. local time in the baggage claim area.
“We have no evidence at this time that he was acting with anyone else,” Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief said of the shooter. No motive has been identified.
Mark Lea, a witness to the shooting, told CBS News that the attack appeared to be random. The suspect was “not screaming anything, not shouting anything,” Lea said. “He was just picking off things like target practice.” Authorities arrested him without incident.
MORE: "He was just picking off things like target practice," eyewitness says of gunman at FLL airport shooting cbsn.ws/21vPMY2
A video shared from inside the airport showed people huddled on the ground and crying. At the end of the footage, at least one woman could be seen bleeding on the ground.
“The casings were flying all around us,” another woman said in the video.
Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, tweeted from the scene about the shooting.
Videos and photos showed people waiting outside on the tarmac, and then being allowed back inside. At about 2:30 p.m. local time, people could be seen running back out onto the tarmac.
Nelson said Santiago had a military ID on him at the airport. The Alaska Army National Guard confirmed to KTUU that he served at one time, but is no longer part of the organization.
The alleged shooter’s aunt, Maria Ruiz, told North Jersey news he was a veteran who had served in Iraq. But when he came back, he was acting strangely.
“I don’t know why this happened,” Ruiz said. She added that her nephew seemed happiest when he was with his child, who was born last year.
Santiago’s brother, Bryan Santiago, told NBC News that the alleged gunman had recently worked as a security guard in Alaska, where he was “fighting with a lot of people” and had received psychological counseling.
Gina Erpardo and her family were waiting for their flight home to Detroit after a cruise to the Bahamas when the shooting broke out. Erpardo, 39, was eating hamburgers with her husband and two sons one level above the baggage claim when she heard the gunshots.
“First I heard screaming and everybody was running like crazy in a panic,” Erpardo told The Huffington Post. “While I was trying to understand what was going on, I heard shots.”
Erpardo said she and her husband immediately lay down on top of their 5-year-old and 10-year-old sons to protect them. She said the first thought she had was of the Istanbul nightclub attack that left at least 39 dead just days ago.
“At that moment, I was lying down on my 5-year-old son, and I was just trying to protect him because I thought somebody was going to come with a gun and shoot everyone,” Erpardo said.
Airport staff led the family family outside, where 200 to 300 others were being held until police cleared the area, Erpardo said. The family was unharmed.
Operations were suspended at the airport, and it was unclear when it will reopen. Authorities have set up a hotline for families and friends of those who were in the airport during the shooting to get information about loved ones. They asked people in the airport not to call 911 unless they were involved in a true emergency.
Several other airports, including Miami International Airport, which is only about 30 miles away, said they were reinforcing security measures out of caution.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) said at a press conference that he briefed President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence on the shooting, to keep them “informed.” He did not reach out to President Barack Obama.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot during a constituent meeting in Tucson in 2011, said on Twitter that the shooting was “another painful reminder of our nation’s gun violence crisis.
Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport is located roughly three miles south of downtown Fort Lauderdale and 21 miles north of Miami. The airport says it was ranked the 21st busiest airport in the United States in 2015, with anticipated passenger traffic in 2016 of 29 million people.
#FLL is currently closed and will be for an extended period of time. Please contact your airline about your flight bit.ly/2iQVVjb.
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