MISHANDLED

Report Shows Officers ‘Caused Chaos’ at Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting

Confusion dominated police response amid radio failures.

Police mishandled their response to a January 6 shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, a new sheriff’s office report shows, causing havoc as an estimated 12,000 people were trapped in the airport and 2,000 officers rushed to the scene. Poor communication among officers is one of the mistakes listed in a new report, after Esteban Santiago shot 14 rounds of ammunition into an airport luggage terminal, killing five people. Officers were called from multiple South Florida departments—this influx of officers created an “impassable parking lot” out of the airport and internal confusion among authorities about who was leading the response. The report also shows that during the shooting, the the county’s 30-year-old radio crashed multiple times and officers could not confine the crime scene to one terminal, leaving witnesses with the shooting victims. Confusion continued for 12 hours, as false reports emerged about other shootings in the airport.