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2013 Los Angeles International Airport shooting

mass shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport

The 2013 Los Angeles International Airport shooting was a mass shooting which occurred on November 1, 2013 at around 9:20 a.m. in Terminal 3 of the Los Angeles International Airport. Paul Anthony Ciancia, aged 23, opened fire with a Smith & Wesson M&P15 rifle, killing a Transportation Security Administration (T.S.A.) officer and injuring several other people.

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2013

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  • There were five gunshot victims. Two of the wounded were T.S.A. agents, and two others were hurt while trying to escape.
    Prosecutors said Mr. Ciancia shot Mr. Hernandez several times at point-blank range, went up an escalator, and then, seeing the wounded officer move, returned to fire again. He shot at least two other uniformed T.S.A. employees and one passenger, the documents said. The gun was described as a Smith & Wesson 223 M & P15 rifle.
    Mr. Ciancia had assembled a small arsenal. Law enforcement officials said two legal guns registered to him were purchased early this year at The Target Range in Van Nuys, a neighborhood of Los Angeles. The rifle recovered at the airport was also purchased by Mr. Ciancia in the Los Angeles area, according to a senior federal official.
  • Police officials missed checking in on Paul Anthony Ciancia "by a matter of minutes" before a deadly shooting rampage occurred at Los Angeles International Airport, the chairman of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee said Sunday.
    Ciancia, who police say shot and killed a Transportation Security Administration screener at LAX, was dropped off at the airport by one of his roommates about 9 a.m. Friday, shortly before the deadly shooting rampage occurred, according to authorities.
    Around the same time, Los Angeles police officers paid a visit to his apartment in Sun Valley in response to concerns from his family after they received text messages indicating that he wanted to harm himself....
    When he entered LAX, Ciancia was wearing dark clothes and a bulletproof vest and had not purchased a ticket. He carried a Smith & Wesson .223-caliber M&P-15 assault rifle, five loaded magazines and a trove of ammunition, Bowdich said.
  • A Transportation Security Administration worker injured in the deadly shooting rampage at Los Angeles International Airport spoke to reporters for the first time Monday, saying his first thought was to help the passengers around him.
    Tony Grigsby, 36, limped from the front door of his South L.A. home to a microphone stand, a brace on his right foot and cane in his right hand....
    "All I could think about was helping them," he said. "I may be injured right now, but the concern really is to take care of you."
    Grigsby was one of three TSA agents struck when a gunman carrying a Smith & Wesson .223-caliber M&P-15 assault rifle opened fire Friday morning at the nation's third-busiest airport.
  • The semiautomatic rifle used in the shooting was purchased at a Van Nuys gun store and could fit into the bag the gunman brought to the airport, a federal law enforcement source told The Times.
    The source said the weapon was a Smith and Wesson M&P 15, caliber .556, which was purchased at the Target Range Gun Store, 16140 Cohasset St., Van Nuys.
    The source said the weapon is “collapsible” to be assembled later. But it could “easily fit ready to fire” into the luggage bag the alleged shooter brought into the airport, added the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.
  • The gun used by the government-hater to kill a checkpoint screener and wound three others? It was the type of firearm that would have been banned from the California market under legislation vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
    Not that it would have mattered for Gerardo Hernandez, 39, the TSA agent who was murdered. The bill would not have taken effect until Jan. 1. And Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, the disgruntled, alleged assassin, could have kept his semiautomatic rifle by registering it.
    And, yes, he also could have armed himself with a handgun and probably inflicted the same damage.
    But presumably he chose the Smith & Wesson M&P 15, .223-caliber semiautomatic — hauling with him five loaded detachable magazines and a trove of ammunition — because he had in mind creating even more mayhem.
    Such military-style assault rifles, after all, are the weapons of choice for mass killers. Ciancia was stopped only when critically wounded by LAX police.
    SB 374, by Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), would have banned the sale of most semiautomatic rifles capable of accepting detachable magazines. The aim was to close a loophole used by gun manufacturers to circumvent California's ban on assault weapons.
    Because of Brown's veto, these especially lethal firearms are still available for purchase in California. And they'll continue to be used by wackos in horrific shootings.
  • The semiautomatic rifle used in the LAX shooting rampage Friday was purchased at a Van Nuys gun store and could fit into the bag the alleged gunman brought to the airport, a federal law enforcement source told The Times.
    The source said the weapon was a Smith and Wesson M&P 15, 5.56-millimeter and .223-caliber, which was purchased at the Target Range Gun Store, 16140 Cohasset St., Van Nuys.
  • A Transportation Security Administration officer killed at Los Angeles International Airport during a rampage three weeks ago was shot 12 times, with bullets piercing organs, grazing his heart and severing a major artery, according to a final autopsy report released Friday.
    Gerardo I. Hernandez, 39, died within two to five minutes of the Nov. 1 attack inside Terminal 3. The gunman, identified by authorities as Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, targeted TSA agents during the shooting, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said earlier this week.
    Hernandez, a married father of two from Porter Ranch, was shot through his right arm, torso, waist, hip, back, buttock and groin by the gunman's semiautomatic rifle, according to the 22-page autopsy report. Many of the shots were fired into the back of the unarmed agent, who became the nation's first TSA officer to be killed in the line of duty.
    Authorities say Ciancia entered the terminal about 9:30 a.m., pulled his rifle out of a bag and fired at Hernandez. The gunman walked up an escalator, then returned to shoot Hernandez again, U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte has said.
    The coroner's report described extensive injuries to many of Hernandez's vital internal organs. The autopsy noted Hernandez suffered "a complete transection of the abdominal aorta distal to superior mesenteric artery" and extensive damage to his spinal cord.
    Hernandez suffered 16 wounds to his gastrointestinal tract. Many of the rounds lodged in his body, the report noted. Medical examiners recovered 40 bullet fragments, which were given to the FBI as evidence, according to the report.
    Two other TSA officers and a schoolteacher were wounded before Ciancia was shot and critically wounded by two airport police officers.
    In Ciancia's possessions, FBI agents recovered a Smith & Wesson .223-caliber rifle as well as notes expressing his hatred for the TSA and the government in general.
  • A Transportation Security Administration officer killed at Los Angeles International Airport during a rampage three weeks ago was shot 12 times, with bullets piercing organs, grazing his heart and severing a major artery, according to a final autopsy report released Friday....
    The coroner’s report described extensive injuries as bullets careened and sliced through many of Hernandez’s vital internal organs, grazing his heart and a lung and perforating his bladder and severely damaging one of his kidneys. Hernandez, the autopsy noted, suffered “a complete transection of the abdominal aorta distal to superior mesenteric artery” and extensive damage to his spinal cord.
    Hernandez suffered 16 wounds to his gastrointestinal tract. Many of the rounds lodged is his body, the report noted. Medical examiners recovered 40 bullet fragments, which were given to the FBI as evidence, the report said....
    In Ciancia’s possession, FBI agents recovered a Smith & Wesson .223-caliber rifle and notes expressing his hatred for the TSA and the government in general.
  • The man accused in the fatal shooting rampage at Los Angeles International Airport was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on 11 felony counts, including murder and attempted murder, prosecutors announced....
    The final three counts are related to allegations that Ciancia used the Smith & Wesson M&P-15 to commit acts of violence at an international airport.
  • The alleged gunman behind the fatal shooting rampage at Los Angeles International Airport could face the death penalty.
    Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on 11 felony counts, including murder and attempted murder, prosecutors announced....
    The final three counts are related to allegations that Ciancia used the Smith & Wesson M&P-15 to commit acts of violence at an international airport.

2015

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  • Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty against the man charged in the deadly 2013 shooting at Los Angeles International Airport, according to court documents filed Friday....
    "Defendant Paul Anthony Ciancia acted with the intent that his crimes would strike fear in the hearts of Transportation Security Administration employees," prosecutors wrote. "By committing his crimes on a weekday morning in a crowded terminal at one of the busiest airports in the world … Ciancia terrorized numerous airline passengers and airport employees."...
    Authorities allege Ciancia was dropped off outside the airport, carrying a Smith & Wesson .223-caliber M&P-15 assault rifle, five loaded magazines and a trove of ammunition.

2016

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  • Paul Ciancia, the gunman whose 2013 rampage at Los Angeles International Airport left a Transportation Security Administration officer dead and three others injured, has agreed to plead guilty to all pending federal charges, according to court papers filed Thursday....
    Ciancia, who had been living in Los Angeles for about 18 months before the shooting rampage, had purchased the Smith & Wesson semiautomatic rifle nearly seven months before he stormed into the terminal....
    "I'm so sorry that I have to leave you pre-maturely, but it is for the greater good of humanity. This was the purpose I was brought here," he told his brother.
    To his sister, Ciancia wrote that he had to "stand up to these tyrants." He asked his sister not to let the media distort his actions.
    "There wasn't a terrorist attack on Nov 1. There was a pissed off patriot trying to water the tree of liberty," he wrote.
  • An unemployed motorcycle mechanic who gunned down airport screening officers at Los Angeles International Airport in a 2013 attack that sent passengers running for their lives pleaded guilty Tuesday to murder and 10 other charges....
    He was armed with a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic rifle he had purchased seven months earlier.
    Officers found a handwritten note and ammunition in a duffel bag Ciancia had dropped.
    Ciancia, who was living in the Los Angeles area after growing up in Pennsville, N.J., said in the note that he wanted to kill at least one TSA officer but hoped to kill more.
    "If you want to play that game where you pretend that every American is a terrorist, you're going to learn what a self-fulfilling prophecy is," his note said, according to court documents.
    The note added, "I want to instill fear in your traitorous minds. I want it to always be in the back of your head just how easy it is to take a weapon to the beginning of your Nazi checkpoints."

See also

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