Around that time, New York Police Department (NYPD) Special Operations Division Chief Harry Wedin said all terminals had been “searched and cleared”. 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.
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People waiting for flights out of Terminal 8 were evacuated from the airport shortly after 9:30 p.m., according to the Port Authority, and a separate report of gunshots prompted an evacuation of Terminal 1 around 10:15.
Emergency crews rushed to the airport Sunday night around 9:30 p.m. ET after a report that gunshots had been fired.
No gun shells or other evidence of shots having been fired was found at the airport, the Port Authority of NY and New Jersey, which operates JFK, said in a statement.
Witnesses reported hearing two shots in the terminal but no police officers reported any suspicious activity. The Van Wyck Expressway approaching the airport also was shut down.
Images posted to social media show large crowds being evacuated. “There are no arrests, there is no confirmation of shots fired”, the Port Authority said in a statement.
One passenger, Demetrius Pipkin, said Terminal One was a “madhouse”, where people were told to “get on the floor and take cover behind any and everything we could find” – but passengers eventually bolted for the exits.
There were no injuries reported. “At this time, no firearm, rounds or shell casings or other evidence of shots fired has been found”, said Joe Pentangelo, a spokesperson for the Port Authority of NY and New Jersey Police Department. He also said that the televisions above him were tuned to CNN and not the Olympics.
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Police confirmed there were no shots fired, but it is still not clear what led to the chaos.
