LOS ANGELES, Sept 6 A man who fatally shot a security screener and wounded three other people at a Los Angeles International Airport terminal in 2013 pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal charges under an agreement with prosecutors that spares him the death penalty.
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A U.S. man has pleaded guilty to murder and 10 other charges in a 2013 Los Angeles International Airport attack that killed a federal airport screening officer and wounded three people.
The gunman, Paul Anthony Ciancia, pleaded guilty Tuesday to killing TSA Officer Gerardo Hernandez and 10 other charges stemming from the November 1, 2013, attack motivated by anger over the security measures imposed on airline passengers.
Ciancia used a semi-automatic rifle to shoot TSA officer Gerardo Hernandez, who was standing at a podium, and fired several rounds, prosecutors said.. In a text to his sister sent while he was en route to LAX, Ciancia said he wasn’t a terrorist but “a pissed off patriot trying to water the tree of liberty”, the plea agreement states.
Los Angeles International Airport was evacuated for the second time in a week after a traffic stop outside a terminal led to a security breach inside the terminal, authorities said Sunday. The Los Angeles Airport shooting suspect also faces another mandatory 60 years in prison on weapon charges. “The millions of people whose journeys begin, end, or pass through LAX should know that it has the finest, most prepared airport police force and federal security personnel in the nation – and that their safety and protection will always be our number-one priority”, Garcetti said.
“I didn’t know whether to get up and run away or sit there”. I’m not a victim of the situation.
The L.A. Times reported that airport police pulled over the driver of a stolen vehicle around 9 a.m., and asked people on the sidewalk to move inside as they made the arrest. He was armed with a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic rifle he had purchased seven months earlier.
This was all during the three-day holiday weekend that officials said would bring a record 817,000 passengers to LAX, a 7.2 percent increase over the same period previous year.
Officers found a duffel bag Ciancia dropped that had ammunition inside and a handwritten note saying he wanted to kill at least one TSA officer but hoped to kill more.
“My husband died, and my children lost their father”, she said.
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Hernandez’s wife, Ana Machuca, declined to speak with reporters after Ciancia’s court hearing. “There isn’t anything anyone can do for us”.
