Five people are dead and a shooting suspect is in custody Friday after a lone gunman opened fire at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida without saying a word, witnesses and authorities say.
At 2:30 p.m. local time, the TSA said there was another active shooter at the airport and that all terminals were closed.
The suspect in the first shooting was identified as Esteban Santiago, Fla. Sen. Bill Nelson told reporters. He said Santiago was carrying a military ID, but did not elaborate.
Eight people were rushed to hospitals, the Broward County Sheriff said. The city's mayor said there was only one shooter involved in the first incident.
"It was very surreal," John Schlicher, a witness, told Fox News. "He did not say a word." He described the shooter as a slender man with dark hair, likely in his 30s, wearing a Star Wars T-shirt.
While speaking to Shepard Smith live on Fox News, Schlicher said he heard crews ordering passengers to take cover. He spoke over the phone while ducked down on the floor."He was shooting people that were down on the ground, too," Schlicher said.
The gunman apparently got down on the ground and waited for police to arrive after he ran out of bullets, a witness told CBS News.
The airport had tweeted that there was an “ongoing incident” at the Terminal 2 baggage claim and that all services were temporarily suspended. The terminal serves Delta Air Lines and Air Canada.
Crews evacuated hundreds of passengers from the terminal onto the tarmac.
Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman, was at the airport at the time of the shooting and tweeted that "everyone is running."
Jillian Saunders, from Palm Beach, Florida, told The Associated Press in direct Twitter messages that she was watching the activity from the tarmac in 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."
The office of Florida Gov. Rick Scott said state law enforcement have not confirmed a motive behind the shooting. Scott is traveling to the scene to be briefed by law enforcement.
The ATF was responding to the scene. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was monitoring the shooting and getting regular updates -- part of standard practice, a federal law enforcement source told Fox News.
The airport is the 21st busiest in the United States and serves 21 different airlines. Nearly 2.5 million people passed through the airport in November, according to a county government report.
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