Grigsby said he thinks it’s fair that the man who carried out the shooting, Paul Ciancia, will get sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to 11 charges including murder in the case. She changed her mind after learning how lengthy that process can be and accepting that no punishment will bring peace to her family.
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Federal prosecutors described the Los Angeles Airport Shooting as an act of “substantial planning and premeditation”.
Ciancia signed the note with his name, adding beneath it, “Pissed-off Patriot”. “This was the goal I was brought here”.
The incident began about 9 a.m., when Los Angeles Airport police pulled over a driver in a stolen vehicle at the airport’s lower level outside Terminal 3, said Officer Rob Pedregon.
Security cameras captured Ciancia opening fire on TSA agent Officer Gerardo Hernandez at a document-screening podium, wounding the 39-year-old married father of two.
When he turned around to see Hernandez moving, he returned and fired more shots at point-blank range. According to prosecutors, Hernandez, a father-of-two was shot 12 times.
TSA agents Tony Grigsby and James Speer, shot as they helped move passengers to safety, attended the sentencing and told reporters later about a scene of sheer chaos in the airport.
Yes, Los Angeles International Airport will be jammed Monday for the final day of a record holiday weekend, but things may be even a bit more tense after another chaotic day of scared passengers stampeding onto the tarmac and a terminal being closed and evacuated.
Ana Hernandez with her children receiving USA flag [Photo by Mark Booster/AP Images] Speer said he was helping a shell-shocked passenger move slowly down the hallway when he saw a bullet hit Brian Ludmer, a teacher, in the calf.
“A split second before I could say, ‘Oh my God, ‘ I felt boom, boom in the back and upper left arm. I was thrown forward from the blast”, said Speer, who ran wounded into a convenience store to hide. I didn’t know what to feel. Ciancia, 26, made the pleas as part of an agreement for him to avoid the death penalty. I’m not a victim of the situation. “I’m never going to get back the moments that I lost to this man making this decision”.
He added that the plea deal had helped bring closure to him and his loved ones, including his sister and mother who also work as TSA officers at LAX.
Officers found a handwritten note in a duffel bag that included additional ammo that he dropped along his path.
A Transportation Security Administration officer stands in front of a portrait of slain TSA officer Gerardo Hernandez during his public memorial in 2013.
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The guilty plea spares Ciancia the death sentence but he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
