Gunman Kills Five People And Wounds Eight At Fort Lauderdale Airport
RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR: And a good day to you, wherever you're joining us. We welcome you as in the United States and around the world. I'm Richard Quest in New York.</s>GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm George Howell at CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. We continue following the breaking news this hour, that deadly shooting at the airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.</s>QUEST: Now, and police and federal investigators are learning more about the man who opened fire at the airport. The gunman killed five people and wounded eight. Sources say he entered a bathroom and started shooting when he came out, sending crowds running. The police have now identified the suspect as 26-year-old Esteban Santiago. He's now being questioned in custody. The FBI says Santiago visited their office in Alaska saying he was hearing voices, telling him to watch ISIS videos. He underwent a mental health evaluation shortly thereafter. Nothing barred him from traveling to Florida or apparently from owning a gun. Authorities say terrorism could have been a motivating factor.</s>GEORGE PIRO, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, FBI: With these types of incidents as horrific they are, we are looking at all avenues. We have not ruled out terrorism and will be pursuing every angle to try to determine the motive behind this attack. And any associates, any connections, communication, everything that you can imagine I assure you we are pursuing every possible lead.</s>QUEST: Now, one theory investigators were looking into is that Santiago was angry after an altercation with another traveler on his flight. But that seems to be being rubbish this evening. Delta airlines officials say they've spoken to the crew and passengers and there was no such altercation.</s>HOWELL: The investigation certainly continuing. The Vice President-elect Mike Pence spoke with Florida's governor a few times after the shooting. And he says this was a heartbreaking loss of life.</s>MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: The hearts of every American are in Fort Lauderdale tonight. The president-elect and I send our prayers and our thoughts to the victims of this attack to their families, to the courageous first responders and to all the citizens of the Fort Lauderdale area. It's a very challenging time.</s>HOWELL: So let's talk about that scene at the airport. What would have you done? I mean, this was a scene of horror, fear and confusion, people running for their lives. Our Randi Kaye takes us through the timeline of events as we hear from the witnesses who were there.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. They want us to hold for the tango line. Guess there's firing going on in the terminal.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're currently having a building evacuation at Terminal 2.</s>RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's just before 1:00 p.m. when a gunman opens fire at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport. He's inside baggage claim at Terminal 2.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He came up right where we were and he was shooting people that were down on the ground too.</s>KAYE: He says they tried to help the victims.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My wife took a sweater from my mother-in-law and applied pressure to the gentlemen right next to it. He had been shot in the head. All the people seemed to be shot in the head. We checked the man next to him, had no vital signs, he was gone.</s>KAYE: Another witness tells CNN his plane had just landed and some victims are his fellow passengers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of a sudden, everybody started running. I grabbed our kids and we took off running down the ramp. Told the flight attendant let us off the tarmac. We ran onto the tarmac to hide behind some luggage carts. It's looks like a war zone in here.</s>KAYE: The airport is immediately shut down. All passengers are evacuated. They run to the tarmac in search of safety. Authorities quickly zero in on the suspect.</s>SHERIFF SCOTT ISRAEL, BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA: We have the shooter in custody. He's unharmed. No law enforcement fired any shots.</s>KAYE: Apprehended but not before these horrifying moments. By now it's 1:43 p.m. And the Broward County sheriff's office tweets that multiple people are dead. Some lucky enough to be alive are left bleeding. Someone posted video of this passenger being treated on the sidewalk. By 2:00 p.m., the official count is three dead. Minutes later, it's up to five dead. At least eight are injured. By mid afternoon, Florida's senior senator says the TSA has told him who did this.</s>BILL NELSON, U.S. SENATE DEMOCRAT: The shooter is Esteban Santiago. He had a military I.D. We don't know if that is an accurate I.D. or if it is a current</s>I.D. KAYE: But it's not over. About 2:20 p.m., word of more gunfire. Police are seen scrambling on a tarmac and near the parking garage. Once again, passengers spill onto the tarmac. Others duck behind parked cars.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody just sprinted outside again, and so just ran out again. I honestly don't know what's happening.</s>KAYE: At 2:33 p.m., a tweet from the TSA, active shooter at FLL shelter in place. Airport closed. Sniper teams are put on alert.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a variety of SWAT teams out and assets out clearing the entire airport.</s>KAYE: No other gunman is found.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this point, it looks like he acted alone. There's no second active shooter.</s>KAYE: Officials won't say if the suspect was targeting someone on an arriving flight or if he's cooperating. Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.</s>QUEST: Now, officials say the suspect carried the firearm and the ammunition in his checked baggage and he did so. And it was all perfectly legal, overboard and properly got organized. This incident could cause airlines to reconsider their policies on traveling passengers traveling with checked weapons. CNN's Tom Foreman shows us how Esteban Santiago made his way into the terminal.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the Fort Lauderdale airport. And based on everything that we've heard about this alleged shooter's travel plans, after leaving Alaska, laying over in Minneapolis and heading here, this in where he would have arrived at Terminal 2 specifically at Gate 5 at this terminal. If we move in closer, I can show you the Gate 5 is the one right back in this area. And people who were on some of the planes say they walked from here down to the baggage area would be about 50 or 60 yards if he traveled the same way that you would expect somebody to normally do on a plane like this. It would be a path something like this through the area down to the escalator, down here and then down to the baggage area. The baggage area is all in here. That's where he would have retrieved his bag with the gun in it if the witness accounts are correct and then people talk about him going into a restroom. There's one over there, there's also one right over here. If that were the case, he could have gone in and come right back out firing roughly about 45 minutes after his plane officially touched down. And we do know, some of the victims were actually right in this area. Now, what about this business of taking a gun on a plane? As a civilian, you cannot do that in a carry on bag. But it is perfectly legal for you to do it in a checked bag. Aside from local and state regulations here's what the TSA say, the federal regulations are. You must tell the airline that you are carrying a firearm. It must be unloaded. You can't have any shells in the chamber or in a clip that's loaded on to it. It must be in a locking hard shell case and only you can have the key and the combination. You can't have a whole lot of people with that information. And lastly, if you are carrying ammunition, that also has to be locked up. Many gun owners will actually lock it in with the gun itself.</s>QUEST: Tom Foreman in that report in first hand. Now, CNN's law enforcement analyst and a retired FBI agent, Steve Moore joins me now from Los Angeles. Steve, we can pass this any way we wish. But I'm curious, what for you as an expert is the most troubling aspect of all of this? STEVE MOORE, FBI SUPERVISORY FIELD AGENT</s>QUEST: Yeah. Now, you shouldn't be surprised about that. That is the story of many is whether it's lone wolf or organized attacks. We saw that in Paris. We saw it in Brussels. We've seen it more recently in Turkey. Everybody knows a little bit of something and nobody puts it together. Another good example of course, certainly, was Germany where the truck went into the Christmas market.</s>MOORE: Right. And I think that's going to be the revolution that happens in counter-terrorism and even in threat management where there is, and I mean, we've got all the data in the world on social media. We don't have it in law enforcement and there has to be some kind of synergy between all different phases of law enforcement and mental health to where you're all -- you're all sharing information. And until we get to that point, we're not going to be able to predict these things.</s>QUEST: If as suggested, Santiago does say that he have thought he heard voices from ISIS requiring him to join or whatever, does that, I mean, obviously, in terms of himself, that is a mental health issue, a sad one that needs to be treated. But in terms of the fact that, you know, ISIS raises its ugly specter, even in this area of mental health, what do we make of that?</s>MOORE: I think what the mental health professionals might tell us, Richard, is that this person was looking to explain his homicidal ideology by the most oppressive group he could think of. ISIS was the one he thought of. If ISIS hadn't been there, it would have been Al-Qaeda. If it hadn't been Al-Qaeda, it might have been a white supremacist group.</s>QUEST: In other words, we need to be thinking of this as a mental health issue, not as a terrorism issue. But I suggest to you, Steve, whatever that you look at it, we can no longer continue business as usual in these exposed so-called horrible phrase, soft targets like auditoria, stadia, and airports. But that raises the question, what do you want to do about it?</s>MOORE: Well, Richard, you're absolutely right. I mean, we don't have a way to defend these. And if you defend the airports perfectly, they're going to go to stadiums. And if you defend both of those, they're going to go to the malls. There is no way to protect every single large group of people.</s>QUEST: That's rather depressing. I mean, you're basically saying there's to way to protect. And I suppose the right wing in the United States would say, well that's strong argument for everybody to be armed.</s>MOORE: I'm not going to go either direction with that. But I will tell you that I think that walls are not going to stop people. The prohibition of weapons of whatever type are not going to stop people. What are -- is going to stop people is the nuances of looking at people, learning about them and being aware when somebody doesn't fit in the right peg.</s>QUEST: Prevention and that's what that phrase about, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure or something like that. Excellent. Good to see you sir, thank you.</s>MOORE: Good to see you.</s>HOWELL: Still ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, the U.S. says an effort to influence the U.S. election was directed from the highest levels of the Kremlin. We'll explain what is in the declassified report ahead. Donald Trump is reacting to the intelligence report that Russia orchestrated the cyber campaign to favor him in the U.S. election. You'll hear what he has to say, next.