The Los Angeles Airport Police Department arrested a man dressed up as “Zorro” moments before false gunfire reports caused chaos among passengers at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Sunday evening, the KTLA 5 New reported.
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She said the passengers ran to a corner of the domestic departure lounge when they heard people screaming and running for safety.
The false alarm comes as police investigate whether a raucous Olympics celebration August 14 led to noises people believed were shots at New York’s Kennedy Airport, with the ensuing chain reaction turning into a panic as crowds ran to evacuate.
Airport police are investigating the cause of a “loud sound” that may have been mistaken for gunfire, they said.
Believing the man was armed with a sword, police approached him with weapons drawn “out of an abundance of caution”, according to the airport.
The scare comes two weeks after reported gunshots prompted an evacuation at New York City’s JFK Airport in what turned out to be a false report.
Los Angeles police spokesman Andy Neiman said a search Sunday through the terminals uncovered no evidence of a gunman or shots fired.
At 10:33pm, LAX tweeted that the man in the Zorro costume had been detained, but it was not immediately clear what connection he had to the false alarm.
Los Angeles police searched the buildings and found no shooting occurred, police said. About 280 flights were delayed, and at least 27 planes were diverted to other airports. The false report at LAX spread via word-of-mouth as passengers and employees sprinted onto the airfield and into roadways near the central terminal area.
Some people inside the airport heard loud noises they knew weren’t gunshots, but it was possible the noises induced some other people to call 911, McClain told KNX 1070.
Passengers breached security doors and spilled out onto the airport tarmac at around 9 p.m. after word of a shooting threat spread. “No shots fired. No injuries”.
Vehicle traffic was flowing again on the upper departure level during morning rush hour, but cars backed up on the lower arrival area, Castles said.
A man dressed as the masked bandit Zorro and carrying a plastic sword was arrested at gunpoint outside terminal seven, where a United Airlines flight to Melbourne was cancelled.
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Roads into the airport were only slowly starting to be reopened, and flights were only slowly resuming again, with massive backup expected for both, officials said.
