The Broward County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) is reporting that they are conducting an active search at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Apparently there is concern that there may be a second shooter.
Active search: Unconfirmed reports of addt'l shots fired on airport property.
— Broward Sheriff (@browardsheriff) January 6, 2017
The TSA has tweeted that there is still an active shooter, which has people concerned that there is. It is important to remember that the TSA is not in charge of what is going on right now at the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office is the agency in control of the response. Information coming from sources other than BCSO may not be accurate.
The confirmed shooter is in custody. MSNBC is reporting that his name is Esteban Santiago, that he’s 26, was born in New Jersey, didn’t say anything – just opened fire, and that he has a military ID, but there is no word yet on potential motive.
As always: this is going to be a fluid situation and developing story. So information is going to change and, possibly, quickly.
Updated at 3:15 PM
The Broward County Mayor, Barbara Sharief, has just told MSNBC that the only shooter, who she wouldn’t name, is in custody and has been for some time. The ongoing BCSO operations are because someone reported a suspicious noise in the parking garage at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. So the BCSO is clearing the parking garage and other areas out of an abundance of caution.
Updated at 3:25 PM EDT
Media briefing will be in the upper level, between Term. 1 and Term. 2 at 3:20 pm.
— Broward Sheriff (@browardsheriff) January 6, 2017
If I can find a link to a video feed, provided there is a video feed, I’ll post it.
Updated at 3:35 PM EDT:
.@browardsheriff Scott Israel: Suspect was taken into custody w/o incident. pic.twitter.com/mSeluTPrcK
— Broward Sheriff (@browardsheriff) January 6, 2017
Updated at 5:15 PM EDT
NEW: In Nov. 2016, FLL suspect walked into FBI office in Anchorage, claiming he was being forced to fight for ISIS, sources tell CBS News.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 6, 2017
MORE: In 2011 or 2012, suspect was investigated for child porn, but there was not enough evidence to prosecute, sources tell CBS News.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 6, 2017
And now it gets ugly, interesting, and bizarre.
trollhattan
BBC reporting one gunman shot and in custody, and a second man later led away by police. Seems there’s always a “second gunman” in the first reports from any mass shooting.
And since I was at BBC I was led to this mind-boggling fact–Japan’s 2014 gunshot death total: six.We’re doing it rong.
rikyrah
Esteban Santiago?
Born in NJ
A domestic terrorist.
raven
“For those of you not familiar with the airport, terminal 2 is literally right next to terminal 3”!!!! Fuck yes!
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I’ve been through Dulles where Terminal D is no where near Terminal B. Nor is terminal A near terminal B. So this is important.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: You can’t get there from here. . .
Mnemosyne
Mordant humor: Good thing Trump is building that wall to keep out the terrorists from New Jersey.
dr. bloor
@rikyrah: His name will give the assholes all the ammo they think they need.
raven
Broward County has a mayor???? And a commissioner!
rikyrah
@dr. bloor:
Ok…gimme the angle.
He’s not Omar Muhammad.
raven
@dr. bloor: Speaking of ammo. News geeks are saying the dude flew in on Air Canada, had the weapon illegally checked. Picked it up, went into the head and loaded it and then started shooting.
raven
@rikyrah: Hispanic, they are big threat too,
Thoroughly Pizzled
It doesn’t matter that he’s not Muslim, everyone just says that if he were a Muslim, he wouldn’t have been arrested or some garbage like that. Some people are aggravating.
JPL
@raven: Did the bride get home safely?
GregB
Remain calm, the shooter may have just been standing his ground.
raven
@JPL: Yea, she left @ 10 and was home by 1:30.
thx
Major Major Major Major
New Jersey. They’re not sending their best.
raven
@Major Major Major Major: Blame Canada!
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Exactly!
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major: Heh
“From the state that gave you Chris Christie….”
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Not possible. Canada has significant firearms restrictions on handguns. Moreover, most of the eyewitness reports are that he entered from outside the terminal 1 baggage claim. The claim of coming from Canada is from one, unnamed Broward County commissioner.
The Sheriff will be holding a briefing shortly.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Everything’s legal in Jersey.
(Just a little something for the Hamilmaniacs.)
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman: The Sheriff is near!
GregB
If only this law was in place!
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/florida-goper-introduced-bill-to-allow-guns-in-airport-terminals-days-before-ft-lauderdale-shooting/
raven
@Adam L Silverman: I assume that applies to long guns? It had to have been a semi-auto.
David Hunt
USA Today is reporting the five people are dead and nine are injured. Best wishes to all victims. I hope the numbers are lower than reported.
NCSteve
Just had to squeeze one last one in before Obama left office.
People always think there’s a second shooter. Or a third shooter when there’s only two. Or more than got caught when the number is higher. Sometimes they’re right. Most of the time, it’s just their brain trying to wrap itself around the sheer scale of the amount of death and horror a single person with a modern firearm can do.
I’ll bet there were hardly ever people claiming to have seen a second swordsman or a second knife-weilder or a second flintlock wielding killer when someone went berserk back before repeating firearms.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: No, it’s still Thanks Obama.
@trollhattan: That nugget about Japan is so shocking that it’s almost unbelievable. Wow.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: Well played.
Patricia Kayden
@GregB: Republicans really don’t give a damn about people, do they? It’s all about the guns. I guess they’ll soon pass laws about how well gun owners should treat their guns and put them in jail for gun neglect.
raven
@Patricia Kayden: A friend commented on a FB post but the shooting and it exploded with fucker bitching about airports being gun free zone and screaming about Muslims.
raven
Sheriff ain’t saying nothin abut how he got the gun there.
Spanky
@Patricia Kayden:
Not really about the guns. It’s all about money. Rubes buy guns, gun makers give money to NRA, NRA buys Congresspersons (many!), Congresspersons campaign on Freedom!, rubes give money to Freedom! Congresspersons, then go out and buy more guns.
Ad infinitum, it seems.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Baggage claims are so vulnerable. Anyone can walk in a baggage claim. No security. Do whatever they want.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Pete Williams is saying that’s what the cops are saying. He may have been coming from Alaska.
raven
@Yarrow: They are saying he flew in with the piece.
Yarrow
@raven: I thought the gun nuts were trying to pass laws to allow guns in airport. Would make it so much safer. Everyone gets to shoot.
raven
You have to go to a specific place to retrieve a weapon, not just have it in your baggage.
Yarrow
@raven: That’s really strange. It was in checked baggage? Then he collected his bag and started shooting?
raven
@Yarrow: They are according to the Facebook thread I’m reading.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: And why the hell shouldn’t airports be gun free zones? My head is hurting.
@Spanky: True about the money that the NRA gives to the GOP but I’ve heard of some Republican-controlled counties where legislation is passed requiring all citizenry to own a gun. Mind boggling but I guess it plays into your theory.
I’m waiting for a Republican politician to get on t.v. after one of these tragic shootings and say something like: “Well it could have been worse. The gun could have been hurt in the shooting.”
sharl
The Broward Sheriff twitter account just started showing activity, presumably in parallel with the now ongoing news conference. Not much new there yet. News organizations probably a better source, with the usual caveats applying regarding “breaking news.” Twitter hashtag for “Fort Lauderdale” more active than (understandably and properly) more prudent official law enforcement accounts.
Major Major Major Major
@Spanky: Dems try to pass gun control laws, they make money on donations to stop the laws. Dems pass gun control laws, they sell more guns before the laws kick in. The laws kick in, they sell more guns just over the border.
raven
@Yarrow: I’ve flown with weapons and you have to check it with baggage people and go to a special place and retrieve it with ID and all that. You don’t just put it in your checked bag.
Pete Williams is saying the opposite but I bet it comes out that he went to a center somewhere and got it.
Yutsano
@Patricia Kayden:
Because FREEDUMB!!! Or some such rot.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Canada has restrictions on both semi-automatic long guns and pistols. MSNBC just reported that he did, in fact, fly in from Canada. Had checked a 9mm handgun. Retrieved the checked gun at baggage claim, unpacked it, loaded it, fired it, reloaded it, and fired it.
At this point its still a bit unclear. As someone who’s familiar with the checked gun regs from when we had to get my two military teammates from the Continental Redeployment Center with their issued firearms to Germany (we civilians drew our weapons from the Brigade armory in Germany), this seems strange.
Yarrow
@raven: I guess you could do it illegally. Might not be caught by TSA.
From ABC News report:
That is really odd. Not a murder/suicide.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: I don’t think they really know wtf and, as you know, it will come out eventually.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I have published on this.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
the ever living PHUCK?!?!?!?
WHAT????
Mike in NC
We need a law to prevent the Orange Shitgibbon from Tweeting 24/7.
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
Gun nuts don’t think there should be any gun-free zones. They think they should be allowed to keep Their Precious with them at all times: at their kid’s daycare, at the grocery store, in their doctor’s office, at their local bar. Everywhere.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Now I’m starting to think this was targeted in some way, most likely against an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife. It seems way too planned out for a random shooting.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: he could’ve pretty easily landed, bought one, and come back, right?
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Isn’t that what happened in that airport shooting in Russia a few years ago? Guy walked in and started shooting? Even if that’s not what happened here, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a big vulnerability. You can just walk in and start shooting.
I know they put guards at the places where people exit from the terminals into the baggage claim. But it seems like they only have one or maybe two guards there. Unlike the massive security and numbers of TSA officials at the security entrances, the exits seem really vulnerable to me. If a group were organized it wouldn’t take too many people to enter an airport from baggage claim, enter the terminal via the exits to baggage claim and wreak havoc once inside. They’d only have to neutralize one or two guards to get into the terminal via baggage claim/exits. Maybe there’s more security than I’m aware of, but it seems like a big vulnerability to me.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Love him :)
Spanky
More breaking, yet unsurprising, news:
Sad!
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: I wonder if he would ever think of running for President. Love that he stepped forward with his objection to Sessions. There is so much evidence that Sessions is an avowed racist that it’s incredible that he will be our next chief Attorney. He hates Black people.
PaulW
that he was allowed to retrieve his checked gun and have it fully loaded in an AIRPORT FULL OF PEOPLE still makes me wanna puke in the general direction of the NRA.
And this is a place with a sh-t ton of TSA and local security. Having all those “good guys” with guns did nothing to stop this from happening.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Possibly. If he had a Florida conceal carry permit, he could purchase the gun without the 3 day waiting period/cooling off period. But it would have taken a while. Leave the airport, go to the licensed firearms dealer, buy the gun and the ammo, return to the airport. That does not seem to be the case here.
JordanRules
@Yarrow: Same as most public places no? Thought the idea about the gates being super secure was about very critical threats involving the airplanes (hijacking, 911 and the like).
You can walk into any mall and any number of highly populated places and wreak havoc like you can at baggage claim.
ETA: I missed you mentioning this vulnerability allowing easier access to the terminals. My bad. :)
Patricia Kayden
@Mnemosyne: Even in God’s House.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Good.
Patricia Kayden
@PaulW: From what I’ve read, he went into the bathroom to load his gun. I assume he went into a stall and no one saw him. Perhaps security didn’t notice him until he started shooting. If this was a sensible country, guns wouldn’t be allowed in airports unless in the possession of security guards and police officers who are on duty. This is some nonsense.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay:In hindsight, he should have run for President.
Yarrow
@JordanRules: Yes, of course. Any public place is vulnerable. We just have a specific fear in airports because of 9/11. So access to airports has been clamped down on harder than in other public places. So the baggage claim vulnerability and access to terminals via the exits to baggage claim seem like obvious vulnerabilities to me. That bored person guarding the exits from the terminal to the baggage claim seems like they’d be pretty easy to get past.
sharl
@Mnemosyne: Way too early to know of course, but that’s an interesting hypothesis. That was the strategy devised by the older/mastermind half of the DC sniper duo that terrorized my home turf back in 2002: he hoped to eventually find and kill his ex-wife while he and his young partner in crime killed strangers in a pseudo-random manner, so her planned murder would just blend in with those other killings.
I would think if this was the scenario, interviews with family, friends and acquaintances, along with a search of their travel plans, would turn up something quickly.
raven
OK, he didn’t come in from Canada, he came in from Alaska through Minneapolis.
Also, maybe not terrorism, mental issues.
Comrade Mary
@raven: #sigh# Still horrible, but a little less guilt from up here if this is true.
Yarrow
@raven: It’s pretty easy to bet on “mental issues” with mass shooters. You’ll be right a lot of the time.
raven
@Yarrow: No according to the wingnuts.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
He didn’t want to. I asked. He said “if I were running for President I would have to be raising money right now”
He’s prickly with media. I don’t know if he would be good at it. He’s also a terrible debater. Just really bad. I don’t know what the problem is.
DeVos is a long-time Michigan wingnut so I would expect Stabenow to oppose her. DeVos is REALLY far Right. There’s this variant of Michigan Dutch protestant who are like fire and brimstone. She’s in that group. Stern people. Harsh. Unforgiving.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Kay:
Quite tactful and perhaps too gracious; I think the word you were looking for there is “hateful.”
Ksmiami
The worst part about the DeVos Scamway woman is that she is not remotely qualified for the job. I mean, yes Tillerson has some issues, but he definitely has managerial experience and probably could learn on the job. What has DeVos ever done that makes her qualified – donate money to opposing causes?
OGLiberal
@raven: Also, doesn’t matter if he was born in NJ, he’s not a “real” American.
Debbie1
@Yarrow: The news report stated that the gunman collected his checked luggage, went to the bathroom to load it, came out and started shooting without saying anything.
Adam L Silverman
I’m all breaking newsed out! I’m going to prep dinner, get it in the oven, and vacuum. I’m never covering the Friday shift here again!
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: You made me laugh, Adam. I read that as going to prep dinner, get in the oven…
My first thought was wow, hiding in the oven, Adam really did have a rough day.
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: Nope. Stuffed peppers with freshly made red sauce. Dinner should be served in about ten minutes or so.
Glad it was good for a giggle though.