FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A gunman opened fire at the Fort Lauderdale airport Friday, killing five people and wounding eight before being taken into custody, officials said. The attack spread panic and sent passengers streaming from the airport.
The gunman was identified as Esteban Santiago-Ruiz, 26, who had active-duty military identification on him and was born in New Jersey, law enforcement sources told CBS News.
Nearly an hour after the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said a suspect was in custody, people started running across the tarmac, CBS Miami station WFOR-TV reports. The sheriff’s office said there were unconfirmed reports of more shots fired on airport property.
Authorities gave no details on a possible motive for the shooting inside Terminal 2, which serves Delta Air Lines and Air Canada.
The airport suspended operations as law enforcement authorities rushed to the scene and emergency medical workers treated at least one bleeding victim on the tarmac.
President Obama was briefed on the shooting by his homeland security adviser, the White House said.
Video posted on Instagram appeared to show several people wounded in the baggage claim area of the terminal. One person appeared to be lying in a pool of blood with a head wound.
Paramedics could be seen treating a bleeding victim outside the airport. Hundreds of people stood on the tarmac as an ambulance drove by.
Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief told CNN authorities that a lone shooter was responsible for the attack and had been taken into custody.
The sheriff’s office urged people on Twitter to not call 911 for information about the shooting. Later, Facebook enabled its safety check feature so users could report their status on the social media platform.
Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer tweeted that he was at the airport when shots were fired and “everyone is running.”
Jillian Saunders, from Palm Beach, Florida, told The Associated Press via Twitter that she was watching the activity on the tarmac from a plane scheduled to fly to Los Angeles.
“Everything you see on the news is happening outside my window,” she said. “I am luckily on the plane and they said we are right now the safest people at the airport.”
