On November 1, 2013, a gunman opened fire in Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport. He was soon confronted and shot by airport police officers, but not before killing a TSA agent and wounding two others and a traveler.
I was still with the LAPD at the time and was among the hundreds of police officers and federal agents who responded to the shooting’s chaotic aftermath. I wrote about the incident two days later, offering my perspective on why the chaos was far worse than it need have been. In short, decisions were made based on inaccurate and speculative reports, this despite the fact that reliable information was readily at hand. These poorly informed decisions led to an unnecessarily prolonged shutdown of the airport, bringing undue misery to thousands of travelers and causing disruptions to air traffic that were felt all over the country and beyond.
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-WiscoDave
