NEW: 911 calls from Lauderdale airport shooting show fear, confusion
Confused travelers and employees called 911 frantically looking for answers in the moments after a man pulled out a gun and opened fire at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Jan. 6.
“We don’t know if there’s a bomb,” said one woman working on a Delta Air Lines flight crew, who were locked in a briefing room at the time of the shooting. “We don’t know what’s going on.”
“We’re in the janitor closets,” another woman said. “Ma’am, please. Oh my God.”
The Broward Sheriff’s Office released today what it termed a “random sampling” of the calls they received on Jan. 6. The sheriff’s office released calls they considered not directly related to the shooting, adding it would release calls related to the incident at a later time.
Esteban Santiago was charged in federal court with 22 charges, including five of "performing an act of violence at an airport that caused death." On Monday, Santiago pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he would face the death penalty or life in prison.
Though the calls didn’t deal with the shooting which resulted in the deaths of five travelers in the airport’s Terminal 2 baggage claim area, many of the calls were made by panicked, nervous people, attempting to make sense of what was happening.
A woman who was in the gate area of Terminal 2 told a dispatcher: “Someone screamed, ‘He had a gun.’ All of the passengers from all of the gates are being taken out of the airport. We’re all on the tarmac.”
