But his win at the Rio Olympic on Sunday night sparked a mass panic and evacuation at New York’s busy John F Kennedy International Airport’s Terminal 8. Passengers posted pictures and videos on Twitter that showed crowds of people gathered outside of the terminals. The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey said in a statement its officers had found no evidence to support the reports but the terminal had been evacuated “out of an abundance of caution”. One police source told NBC news Monday that the sound of people cheering and clapping for the Olympics may have been mistaken for gunshots, but Port Authority spokesman Joe Pentangelo could not immediately confirm this. A highway to the airport was also closed off.
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But then on Sunday night, NYPD special ops reported that all terminals had been “searched and cleared”.
The alleged shots were heard around 9:30 p.m. which coincides with the moment after the beloved Jamaican sprinter snagged his third straight gold medal in the 100-meter race.
There is “substantial presence” of New York Police Department at the JFK and LaGuardia airports and the investigation “continues”, said the Port Authority, which manages the city’s airports.
“Preliminary investigation does not indicate shorts were fired at JFK”, the Port Authority of NY and New Jersey said in a statement released on Twitter.
Demetrius Pipkin told WPIX-TV he was in Terminal 1 waiting for his Norwegian Airlines flight when passengers were “told to get on the floor and take cover behind any and everything we could find”.
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According to the flight tracking company, FlightAware, all inbound flights were held at their origin at until 23:30 “due to security”. Seven of the carrier’s flights into JFK were diverted, with one plane from Miami redirected to its starting destination while others landed at airports including Chicago and Boston.
