'Multiple Victim' Shooting Reported at LA Airport

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'Multiple Victim' Shooting Reported at LA Airport

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A shooting involving "multiple victims" was reported at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Thursday, fire department officials said.


A fire department spokesman told Reuters: "There has been a multiple victim shooting at LAX." The spokesman said reports were still unclear and he had no details.

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Shooting Disrupts L.A. Airport

The shooting reportedly occurred at Tom Bradley International Terminal and closed off much of the airport.

Details were sketchy but the incident reportedly occurred at a ticket counter.

Police said the shooting occurred at 11:32 a.m. after a gunman approached one individual at the international terminal and opened fire.

LAX is now shutdown

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2 dead, 2 wounded in LA airport shooting

The Tom Bradley International Terminal was shut down, Baez said, and everyone inside was evacuated. Hundreds were seen streaming out of the terminal and traffic was stopped outside.

Police cars, ambulances, and fire engines lined the road.

Picture of victim being loaded into ambulance is available in the linked article above.

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Los Angeles airport shooting kills 3

The gunman opened fire around 11:30 a.m. (2:30 p.m. EDT) near the El Al ticket counter inside the Tom Bradley International Terminal, a separate building from the terminals used for domestic flights, officials said. Police said the gunman shot dead a woman in her 20s and man.

Family members identified the male victim as 46-year-old Yakov Aminov, of Los Angeles. He died in surgery as a result of multiple gunshot wounds.

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Airport security: Best and worst

Los Angeles International airport was recently found to be the most vulnerable to infiltration in the United States when it comes to trying to smuggle in weapons.

Knives, guns and explosives carried by federal undercover inspectors were missed by LAX screeners at checkpoints an astonishing 41% of the time in an airport security test.

By contrast to the lackadaisical approach in the US, Israel's national carrier El Al - the other player in Thursday's shooting drama at LAX - spares no expense to create probably the most stringent airline security regime in the world.

Wherever El Al flies, it has its own armed guards from check-in to final destination.

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Los Angeles Airport Gunman Egyptian Native - FBI

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. authorities on Friday identified the man who opened fire and killed two people at the ticket counter of Israel's El Al airlines at Los Angeles International Airport as a 41-year-old Egyptian native.

The FBI issued a photo to television stations of a man they said was the shooter. They identified him as Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, 41, an Egyptian native and resident of the United States since 1992.

FBI sources said he was married with a child and had been living in an apartment complex in the city of Irvine, about 50 miles south of the airport. He was said to have two drivers' licenses, one of them stating his birthday as July 4.

The FBI had spent Thursday saying there was no indication of a terrorist connection in the mid-morning airport shooting. But the new information appeared to cast a different light on the investigation.

"I am not sure whether this confirms there was a terrorist connection," FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin told reporters, who said evidence so far unearthed suggested the attack could be characterized as "a hate crime" under U.S. law.

"There is a possibility that this may have been a terrorist act, but we don't want to jump to conclusions," McLaughlin added, saying Hadayet was not on an FBI watch list.

The assailant was identified on the basis of information found in his car at an airport parking lot some eight hours after Thursday's attack. U.S. authorities had spent hours trying to pin down the gunman's identity and motive.