Live Breaking News & Updates on Gunman Paul Ciancia
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Allegedly so angry with the tsa. we were up in security at the time of the shooting, and we heard the initial gun shots. reporter: police say alleged gunman paul ciancia entered los angeles international airport s terminal three friday morning armed with an assault rifle and five magazines of ammunition. the fbi says it recovered a handwritten note on ciancia that made it clear he was out to kill multiple tsa officers. authorities say he shot tsa officer gerardo hernandez at point-blank range, sending passengers in the security screening area running for cover. investigators say then ciancia went up an escalator but after apparently spotting hernandez still moving on the floor, he doubled back to shoot him again, killing hernandez. there was a pause, and so i looked down the escalator and i saw the gunman, he had his gun trained on the guy on the wall there and he shot him twice. reporter: in the end, two more tsa officers and a traveler ....
California was thinking about harming himself, so obviously i knew i needed to make a phone call to the lapd and have a wellbeing check done there. obviously you don t want to tell us the content but it seemed suicidal in nature, the text message? well, obviously it s an fbi investigation, but the text message itself i believed was the context was that he was thinking about harming himself, yes. so you ve known paul ciancia s father for some time now, i believe? yeah, about 20 years. okay. when did ciancia s father call? you said around 12:30 on friday? how much time between you coming by his house and reading the text message, how much time elapsed before you called lapd? i got to his house about 12:45. looked at the text message, made a decision and we contacted lapd, at which time i spoke to a lieutenant there who was very ....
Helpful, of course. she explained to me that they were in the middle of a shooting at l.a.x. i told her i was aware of that. at this point, we weren t connecting the dots, of course. i asked her if she could conduct a wellbeing check at a residence for me. i received a message from a father in new jersey that is concerned about his son s health or wellbeing, i should say, and she said that they would make an attempt to go by and check the residence. i just want to make sure i understood, the text message from the suspect, it talked about harming himself, it did not say anything about harming anyone else, is that right? that s correct. yes. so you called them at around 12:45 or so and by then, the shooting was around 12:30 east coast time. at what point did you realize that the man you were trying to help find was the man who had been involved allegedly in the shooting 25 minutes or so before you made that phone call? ....
Needed to deal with family issues. reporter: did anyone see a ticket? no. reporter: he says ciancia rarely moved his apartment since moving here in january describing him as awkward and heavily smoker the day he put his alleged plan into action, she says, it took his roommate by surprise. that morning, he doesn t knock. just opens the door and says, i need to leave. can you take me now? reporter: his roommate believes this is when he texted family members in new jersey telling them he was going to commit suicide and that prompted frantic calls between police in new jersey and l.a. police came to ciancia s home. he has a bag, gets in the car and off they go and a short time later, a knock at the door? yes. reporter: police? police. reporter: why the police there? they heard that paul was suicidal and needed to go a welfare check on him. reporter: she said the other two roommates were woken. ....
Fair to good today. so a slight bit of good news there. stephanie elam, thank you so much. as we just heard, ciancia s father called the local police chief, alan cummings, after getting troubling text messages from his son. cummings then called the lapd and asked them to check on ciancia. officers arrived but reportedly missed ciancia by less than an hour. joining us now, pennsville, new jersey police chief, alan cummings, the man who tipped off the lapd. chief, thanks so much for being here. what did paul ciancia s father say to you when he called you on friday? well, jake, i received the call about 12:30 on my cell phone, and he wanted to show me a text message that his younger son received from paul ciancia in california. so i responded to his residence and i was able to take a look at the text message, at what point i felt that it was pretty serious. it sounded as if paul ciancia in ....