A young man who set off panic at los Angeles International Airport on Friday by gunning down a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screener and wounding two other staffers may have been driven by anti-government sentiment, according to preliminary media accounts.
While the authorities said the gunman’s motive was still to be determined, they found a handwritten note in his bag that expressed “disappointment in the Government” and said he “wanted to kill TSA and pigs”. It also said that he had no interest in hurting “innocent people”.
Identified as Paul Ciancia, 23, the gunman pulled a semiautomatic rifle out of his bag and shot his way through a security checkpoint, targeting TSA personnel. Hundreds of travellers ran for their lives. The gunman shot three people, one fatally, before being shot himself and captured.
Before the shooting episode at Terminal 3, the gunman reportedly put out a suicidal text message to a sibling. The message was “in reference to him taking his own life”, Ciancia’s New Jersey-based father told The Associated Press.
lAX, one of the world’s biggest and busiest airports, remained paralysed for hours. A large number of= flights were grounded or diverted as police evacuated passengers and shut down three terminals during the incident.
In all, more than 1,500 domestic and international flights were affected. like several of the perpetrators of mass shootings in different parts of America in recent years, Ciancia was described as a “loner” and of “the quiet type”. Police said the gunman, a US citizen, appeared to be have acted alone.
The slain officer, 39-year-old Geraldo Hernandez, was said to be the first TSA employee killed in the line of duty since the creation of TSA in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001.