Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting: 5 killed, 8 Injured

Timothy Rah
Oxford Academy
9th Grade

On January 6, 2017, a passenger on a Delta Airlines flight shot a magazine of bullets, killingfive people and injuring eight. The shooter’s name was Esteban Santiago, and he was a veteran who fought in the Iraq War.

The shooting occurred in Fort Lauderdale,Fla., in the lower floor of Terminal 2 at around 12:55 p.m. There were reports saying that Santiago shot a magazine full of bullets,using a 9mm handgun that was inside a case. He was then taken into custody for his actions. The scene at the airport was chaotic as people ran everywhere to try to escape from the shooter. Some described it as a “war zone” and others a “mass hysteria.” After the first shooting, there were rumors of a second shooter which made everyone panic and run away from the airport. The chaos led to 37 injures, ranging from bruises to broken bones. Because of the shooting, the airport closed down for hours and flights were cancelled.

A lot of people think that bringing a gun as a carry on is illegal, but that is not true. A person is allowed to bring a gun into an airport if it is securely locked inside a case and is not loaded with bullets. Some say that it should just be illegal to bring a gun into an airport and others say that this rule is perfectlyfine. In Santiago’s case, he was reported to have only checked in a gun case, locked and unloaded, and no luggage. ?Before the incident, Santiago was getting therapy to recover from the war. Santiago was deployed to Iraq from Puerto Rico, his birthplace,and later got sent to Alaska to become a national guard. He was then discharged due to “unsatisfactory performance.” According to the FBI, Santiago reported to them that he was hearing voices and had an urge to watch ISIS videos. His first stop was not Fort Lauderdale though. He flew from Anchorage,Alaska to Minneapolis, Minnesota and finally to Fort Lauderdale, which brought up the question: Was his shooting intended to be in Fort Lauderdale? This question was highly argued but there was no evidence pointing to this. Santiago was questioned for several hours and is now at the Broward Prison. ?The question left now is: Was this an act of terrorism? There are some statements made that say that his act was, in fact, one of terrorism.

Officials are still unclear of what his motive was though, but has not ruled out terrorism.

After this incident, there can be a predictionthat there will be tighter security inside airports across the U.S. The topic of carrying a gun inside of an airport will be discussed by officials resulting in the rule of having a gun as a carry on becoming more restrictive. This incident can be seen as unusual due to shootingsin high security airports being very rare but not impossible.

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