A shooting at an airport in Florida that left five people dead and eight others injured is sending ripples throughout the country as investigators and federal authorities will likely begin looking at key details surrounding the circumstances. At BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport Friday evening, things were proceeding like normal.
As panic and fear gripped travelers at the Fort Lauderdale airport, Barbara Egan was stepping off her flight from New York to BWI; it was to be a short layover before continuing to that airport to catch a cruise.
"(I) got off the plane and looked up and there's CNN with all the news," she said. (It's) pretty scary."
Her story was not unlike others at the airport. No flights from BWI or other airports were getting into Fort Lauderdale, and nothing coming out either.
"We're trying to get to our grandsons 4th birthday and we've got to get there. There's just no flights," said Julie Sanders, who was traveling with her husband to Fort Lauderdale.
The shooting happened when Broward County deputies say a man, identified as Esteban Santiago, 26, a native of New Jersey, pulled a handgun from his checked luggage. The baggage claim area is where MdTA police showed a visible presence, though authorities said there was no increase in the amount of officers on patrol at the airport and that no threat was immenent.
"It's happened at a church - I'm a christian," Sanders said when asked if she had ever considered a shooting happening at an airport. "That scares me. It happens at a movie theatre - I can't go to movies, and now it's an airport."
"You can't escape the violence. It happens in a school. I'm a school teacher," she said.
