Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/770340
ByDavidFischer The Associated Press FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. An Army veteran who complained that the gov- ernment was controlling his mind drew a gun from his checked luggage on ar- rival at the Fort Lauderdale airport and opened fire in the baggage claim area Fri- day, killing five people and wounding eight, authori- ties said. He was taken into cus- tody after throwing his empty weapon down and lying spread-eagle on the ground, one witness said. "People started kind of screaming and trying to get out of any door they could or hide under the chairs," the witness, Mark Lea, told MS- NBC. "He just kind of con- tinued coming in, just ran- domly shooting at people, no rhyme or reason to it." The gunman was iden- tified as 26-year-old Este- ban Santiago of Anchorage, Alaska, who served in Iraq with the National Guard but was demoted and dis- charged last year for unsat- isfactory performance. His brother said he had been re- ceiving psychological treat- ment recently. A law enforcement of- ficial told The Associated Press that Santiago had walked into the FBI office in Anchorage in Novem- ber to say that the U.S. gov- ernment was controlling his mind and making him watch Islamic State videos. Agents questioned an agitated and disjointed- sounding Santiago and then called police, who took him for a mental health evalu- ation, according to the of- ficial, who was not autho- rized to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said Santiago did not appear in- tent on hurting anyone. Authorities said the mo- tive for the attack was un- der investigation. Shortly after the shooting, and be- fore details of Santiago's mental health became pub- lic, Sen. Bill Nelson of Flor- ida said that it remained to be seen whether it was terrorism or the work of "someone who is mentally deranged." One witness said the at- tacker gunned down his victims without a word and kept shooting until he ran out of ammunition for his handgun, sending pan- icked travelers running out of the terminal and spilling onto the tarmac, baggage in hand. Others hid in bathroom stalls or crouched behind cars or anything else they could find as police and paramedics rushed in to help the wounded and es- tablish whether there were any other gunmen. Bruce Hugon, who had flown in from Indianapolis for a vacation, was at the baggage carrousel when he heard four or five pops and saw everyone drop down on the ground. He said a woman next to him tried to get up and was shot in the head. "The guy must have been standing over me at one point. I could smell the gun- powder," he said. "I thought I was about to feel a pierc- ing pain or nothing at all because I would have been dead." It is legal for airline pas- sengers to travel with guns and ammunition as long as the firearms are put in a checked bag — not a carry- on — and are unloaded and locked in a hard-sided con- tainer. Guns must be de- clared to the airline at check-in. Santiago arrived in Fort Lauderdale after taking off from Anchorage aboard a Delta flight Thursday night, checking only one piece of luggage — his gun, said Jesse Davis, police chief at the Anchorage airport. At Fort Lauderdale, "af- ter he claimed his bag, he went into the bathroom and loaded the gun and started shooting. We don't know why," said Chip LaMarca, a Broward County commis- sioner who was briefed by investigators. The bloodshed is likely to raise questions of whether aviation safety officials need to change the rules. The attack also exposed another weak point in air- port security: While trav- elers have to take off their shoes, put their carry-on luggage through X-ray ma- chines and pass through metal detectors to reach the gates, many other sections of airports, such as ticket counters and baggage claim areas, are more lightly se- cured and more vulnerable to attack. In 2013, a gunman with a grudge against the Trans- portation Security Admin- istration shot and killed one of the agency's screen- ers and wounded three oth- ers during a rampage at Los Angeles International Air- port. Last November, an air- line worker was shot and killed near an employee parking lot at Oklahoma City's airport, and in 2015 a machete-wielding man was shot to death after he attacked federal security officers at the New Orleans airport. "While we have autho- rized doubling the num- ber of TSA canine teams to try to prevent tragedies like this,thefactisthatwherever there are crowds, such as at our airports, we remain vul- nerable to these types of at- tacks," Nelson said. The Fort Lauderdale gunman said nothing as he "went up and down the car- ousels of the baggage claim, shooting through luggage to get at people that were hiding," according to Lea. The killer went through about three magazines be- fore running out of ammu- nition, Lea said. "He threw the gun down and laid spread-eagle on the ground until the officer came up to him," Lea said. The gunman was ar- rested unharmed, with no shots fired by law enforce- ment officers, and was be- ing questioned by the FBI, Sheriff Scott Israel said. FLORIDA 5deadinairportshooting;USveteranarrested DAVIDSANTIAGO—ELNUEVOHERALD Law enforcement personnel shield civilians outside a garage area at Fort Lauderdale's Hollywood International Airport Friday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a er a shooter opened fire inside a terminal of the airport. By Eileen Sullivan, Deb Riechmann and Jonathan Lemire The Associated Press WASHINGTON Russian President Vladimir Pu- tin ordered a hidden cam- paign to influence Ameri- ca's presidential election in favor of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, U.S. intelli- gence agencies declared Fri- day in the government's first formal allegation support- ing sensational claims that Trump and his supporters have staunchly resisted. The intelligence report, an unclassified version of a more-detailed classified account given earlier to Trump, the White House and congressional leaders, withheld any evidence to back up its assertions. The president-elect said after his own meeting with the nation's top intelligence of- ficials that it was clear Rus- sian email hacking did not deliver him the presidency. The unclassified version was the most detailed pub- lic account to date of Rus- sian efforts to interfere with the U.S. political pro- cess, with actions that in- cluded hacking into the email accounts of the Dem- ocratic National Commit- tee and individual Demo- crats like Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta. Russia also used state-funded propaganda and paid "trolls" to make nasty comments on social media services, the report said. There was no sugges- tion that Russia affected ac- tual vote counting or tam- pered with ballot machines. The report, for the first time, explicitly tied Putin to the hackings, called it the "boldest effort yet" to influence a U.S. election, and said the Russian gov- ernment provided emails to WikiLeaks — something the website's founder, Julian Assange, has repeatedly de- nied. The intelligence agen- cies also said Russia will continue to try to influence future events in the U.S. and worldwide, particularly among U.S. allies. Since Election Day, the intelligence agencies said, Russia has launched a "spear-fishing" campaign to try to trick people into revealing their email pass- words, targeting U.S. gov- ernment employees and think tanks that specialize in national security, defense and foreign policy. The report lacked details about how the U.S. learned what it said it knows, such as any intercepted conversa- tions or electronic messages among Russian leaders, in- cluding Putin, or about spe- cific hacker techniques or digital tools the U.S. may have traced back to Russia in its investigations. Exactly how the U.S. monitors its adversaries in cyberspace is a closely guarded secret, since reveal- ing such details could help foreign governments fur- ther obscure their activities. The unclassified ver- sion included footnotes ac- knowledging that it "does not include the full sup- porting information on key elements of the influence campaign." It said its con- clusions were identical to the classified version, which was more detailed. ELECTION INFLUENCE US report says Putin ordered effort to help Trump, damage Clinton | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 2017 6 B