you didn t hear shots i didn t i heard shots but i didn t see, you know, who was shooting or where and, you know, at the moment it wasn t obvious that there was just one shooter. and when he asked you, when he said tsa, did you realize what he meant? did you realize that absolutely. if you said you were tsa absolutely. if i had a tsa uniform, i wouldn t be here talking to you, sir. you have no doubt about that? i m convinced. well, it s just it s so hard to believe. leon, i m so glad things are okay for you and appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. thank you. thank you very much for calling. well, there is a lot more details to learn tonight. next, two members of tv s myth buster show describe what they saw in terminal three. we ll be right back. [ male announcer ] at his current pace, bob will retire when he s 153,
spoke earlier with tom ridge. during the bush administration he was the nation s first secretary of homeland security. mr. secretary, appreciate you joining us. as we said this was the first time a tsa employee has been killed in the line of duty since the organization was established during a time in the bush administration. what do you make of what happened today at l.a.x.? what are the main sort of points you re looking at or interested in finding out more details on? well first of all i think you re right. there s still more details to be determined. let s be very clear. i think all the other guests have spoken to this. the possibility of an individual coming into a terminal with a hidden firearm is real. and it s something that they re going to have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. there are 1.8 million passengers a day that go through over 450 airports. and so this is a real challenge that as i think tom pointed out, as horrible as the tragedy was the resiliency and the re
this is just one more horrible incident, not to take away from the tragedy, it s unspeakable and there is a lot of pain and sufferering but we have to think deeper and do more than simply talking about the violence of firearms. and the indication that this person was specifically asking people whether they were with the tsa interesting. i mean, i haven t heard i mean, that s does that surprise you? it s bizarre. listen, you and i both know, go back to timothy mcveigh, we know some people turn to violence, god forbid this awful violence and oklahoma city because of grudges or hatred or whatever the evil, dark side, emotion is in their heart and head and that s the excuse and motive but then again, i think in 2010 there were like 12,000 firearm homicides and motives all over the place. i think we have to be very
shots, we heard more shots and everybody kind of hit the ground, people started to run. did you know what the shots did you know instinctually it was shots? i didn t know what was happening and i didn t turn around to look. the shots was coming from behind me, and the tsa agent that was near me urged me to, you know, grab my stuff and go and he saw that i didn t have my shoes on, and, you know, so he grabbed the shoes and the two of us started running down the corridor towards the gate. meanwhile, more shots rang out, and this agent got hit. i think it was a grazing wound because he seemed to be okay. he had my shoes. i went and kind of towered in a corner and the shooter was just calmly walking down the corridor, but he saw me cowering there, he had his gun and looked at me and said tsa?
airports are configured differently. lax is different from hearts field here in atlanta where you go through the security check point and then go down an escalator and get on a train and that takes you to the terminals. there is more of a buffer. here at lax there was not. we heard the airport police that said he used to have an officer on the secure side at a podium but decided to redeploy him on the other side between the curve and security check points. they had an active shooting training three weeks ago, anderson, with a scenario almost exactly as this one. tom, you know, i guess some people will probably call for or ask whether tsa agents themselves should be armed. what do you make of that? tsa agents obviously are not armed but there is usually an armed security officers on the