Shooting at Fort Lauderdale airport

[steve58]

Sounds like several dead, suspect in custody  >:(

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/01/06/multiple-dead-at-least-6-injured-in-shooting-at-fort-lauderdale-airport.html

[steve58]

Just found out my next door neighbors were on a flight to the Fort Lauderdale airport to catch a cruise for their son's wedding tomorrow!  They got diverted back to DC.

A lone gunman killed five people and injured eight Friday at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, which was forced to shut down and thrust into chaos as a false report of a second shooter sent passengers scrambling about an hour after the first shooting.

The suspected gunman was identified as Esteban Santiago, law enforcement officials told the Miami Herald. He is thought to have been a passenger on a flight from Canada that landed at FLL at around noon with a checked gun in his baggage.

After retrieving his bag, Santiago is believed to have gone into the bathroom and loaded the weapon. Then he stepped into the Terminal 2 baggage-claim area and began shooting.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article124963889.html

[DoctorQuest]

WTF??

Prayers for all involved.

[MetalDog]

Pretty thorough article on what went down.  Still no known reason for the shooter to start.


http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/gunshots-and-chaos-at-fort-lauderdale-airport-with-five-dead-eight-wounded/ar-BBxZ21z?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

[GDS_Starfury]

I am so jaded and numb to this kind of bullshit.
I shit you now my thought was "damn thats fucked up... and traffic is going to be an all time clusterfuck"
I-95, all 14 lanes of it and one of the main east/west transfers, was shut down as the highway runs along the west end of the airport.

[panzerde]

Wife just got a text from her sister. Our niece was in the airport during the shootings. She was in the area where a second set of shots were reported, and ran out on to the tarmac to get away. Fortunately not hurt, and not right in the actual shooting area. A bit too close for comfort, though.

[bayonetbrant]

That's awesome that she's ok

[Staggerwing]

So good to hear, Panzerde.

I pray for much strength in the days to come for the survivors and the families of all victims.

[airboy]

Wife just got a text from her sister. Our niece was in the airport during the shootings. She was in the area where a second set of shots were reported, and ran out on to the tarmac to get away. Fortunately not hurt, and not right in the actual shooting area. A bit too close for comfort, though.

Glad to hear that she is ok.

My wife and I feel like we are being stalked.  We will be flying Delta to Ft. Lauderdale in March.  The Delta baggage terminal is where the shooting occurred.  We also have a river cruise to the German Christmas Markets in December.

[steve58]

Surprise, surprise (not)...apparently  the shooter, Esteban Santiago (aka Aashiq Hammad) is an Islam convert.

[Sir Slash]

Great find Steve. I hadn't heard this anywhere else.  O0 Nelson's up for re-election this time around. Let's hope everybody doesn't forget about this in November.

[JasonPratt]

And had been a Muslim convert, living within walking distance of the only mosque in Alaska (?), taking on a Muslim name, investigating into ISIS weapons-making videos, etc. -- before joining the National Guard.

If a woman wants to profess her identity as a gender-fluid dragon fairy who isn't either a dragon or a fairy so stop oppressing her by profiling her into those categories, then the social left thinks that's great and we should accept her profession of feelings on this topic. If Estaban Santiago goes through a radical Muslim phase as a teenager, though, that can't really be relevant to him shooting up a Fort Lauderdale airport, so no reason to bother reporting that. (Even my newshound Mom hadn't heard about this yet a few minutes ago.)

Granted, the boy probably is (and was) mentally ill (and/or a teenager who never grew up out of being a wangsty teenager). That's relevant, too. But covering up his past ties to jihadism doesn't help anyone anywhere.

[JasonPratt]

Having said that, it's possible the Feds wanted the media to hold back on this information because they're trying to check on who he could have been planning to work with in Ft. Lauderdale, which has an activist Muslim population with known terrorist connections, and they didn't want to tip off any tangos that the hammer is on the way down. 

[panzerde]

The fact that this was reported by a single site, from an unnamed source should be cause for skepticism. It may be true, but there is no verification at this point, and until there is, it should be taken with a grain of salt.


People's social positions and bias notwithstanding, that's what a reasonable person does. The lack of even the most basic critical thinking skills when it comes to "news" in today's political climate is corrosive to American democracy.


Learn to be skeptical, regardless of your political views.

[JasonPratt]

When I was clicking back through the article sources earlier, the original detail investigation seems to be GotNews, which is flagrantly, stridently anti-Democrat political -- but they do have some record at digging up information, and they did source where they claim to have found it. ABC news itself, in a paragraph of one of their articles, ran the jihadist identity first, as a sort of sidenote without much detail.

I was, and still am, sceptical that Alaska only has one mosque, as noted in my parenthetical question mark there.

The ABCgo story: http://abcnews.go.com/US/santiagos-terror-ticket-fort-lauderdale/story?id=44648391

Since the attack, investigators recovered his computer from a pawn shop, and the FBI is examining it to determine whether the alleged shooter created a jihadist identity for himself using the name Aashiq Hammad, according to officials familiar with the case.

The Gotnews story: http://gotnews.com/breaking-records-suggest-fortlauderdale-shooter-estebansantiago-puerto-rican-islamic-terrorist-anime-fan/