House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said Thursday that it was an airline contractor, not TSA officers, who alerted local law enforcement of the shooter who went on a deadly rampage at Los Angeles International Airport earlier this month.
During his opening statement at a hearing about the Transportation Security Administration’s response to the attack, McCaul said nobody pressed a panic button at the screening checkpoint where the gunman first opened fire and that the phone TSA screeners were supposed to use to contact police was “understandably” left behind during the evacuation because it is a landline.
In the end, McCaul said, the gunman had four minutes before law enforcement arrived.
“The gunman had four unobstructed minutes,” McCaul said, noting the shooter was carrying 150 rounds. “Four minutes is a long time.”
McCaul said many more lives could have been lost if the gunman was looking to inflict mass casualties rather than target TSA officers. TSA officer Gerardo Hernandez was killed in the shooting, and two were wounded.
McCaul: TSA at LAX didn"t call cops
No comments:
Post a Comment