and the police started banging on the door. of course we didn t know it was the police. so there was a few minutes of confusion and fear not knowing who was banging on the door. the virgin employees were very smart in asking the police to show their i.d.s. they came in. they were amped up, fully ready to find somebody in there. but they were very professional and quickly realized that there was no criminal element in the lounge. so we were locked in there for about an hour. and then finally led down right next to where the law enforcement people killed the shooter. by gate 35. in terminal 3. all right. and i just am only going to correct you in case any viewers are joining us, the shooter our understanding is alive at this time. oh. not saying that s incorrect. only in case the viewers joining now, tim. let me ask you the question. when you say you heard shots, we re trying to understand how
trapped in the terminal. they can t immediately egress. there s no emergency exit out onto the tarmac, which i understand was a major problem with some of the people hiding at gate doors waiting to go finally be freed to run jot onto the tarmac. it could have been a terrible terrible tragedy. as bad as it was, i think we re lucky that it was contained so quickly by law enforcement personnel. tim, thank you very much. always appreciate your time and analysis. still to come more of our breaking news coverage of the deadly shooting at l.a.x. what we re just learning about the suspect and his motivation and what police say was an assault weapon. and this question. is there something deeply wrong with the security at america s airports? we re going to talk about this very specific issue about the tsa, where it s located in the airport with an expert. how could this happen at one of if not the most fortified airport in america? 56 [ susan ] .as though he had never left.
and we don t know how many planes might have been sitting there. according to tom fuentes, if he gets past here and gets into the gate area, again could have shot many people in here, could have gone onto a jetway, possibly onto a sitting plane. and tom says that planes that are sitting at these gates often you re able to walk in and the cockpit doors we know that they re secured during flight, closed. but when they re sitting in these areas the cockpit doors are open sometimes with pilots sitting in them. tom laid out a scenario where he could have gotten into one of these planes and possibly even hijacked it with a pilot sitting in there. a lot of caveat es to that of course. there could be service vehicles attached to a plane. a flight crew maybe not there. but tom says when you get in there and you pull a gun on a pilot, pilot s told to pull out he can conceivably do that. so that s a scenario that could have played out if he just gets past this point here, erin. and they stopped
many shots there were. we know tsa agents aren t allowed to carry guns. but the shooter obviously had an assault weapon and there were law enforcement who came in and shot him. do you have any recollection of how many shots you heard? i would say between 10 and 15, although i didn t keep count. though there were quite a few shots. that sounds like what other people are saying, too. they moved. because the lounge is as i said on the second floor. and the first two or three shots were sounded like they were coming down the hallway into the wide open round place where the waiting area is for the boarding gates. and then there was a flurry of shots that took place right where the boarding area is. that s where the majority of the shots they heard were fired. all right. well, tim, thank you very much. we appreciate your taking the time. i know it s been an incredibly long and stressful day. so thank you for talking to us. i want to bring jeff beede in
clemente, a former fbi counterterrorism unit. this unit running the investigation into the shooting at l.a.x. tim picking up on what brian todd just said, you get through the security point and then really you think about horrible things could have happened. so many people walking around. planes and you could hijack a plane. does that concern you sort of that he was able to get as far as he did? well, erin, there s the tsa officers, my prayers go out to the family of the individual who died and the wounded people. but the t sa officers are not armed so they have no way realistically to deal with a threat like this. and there s very limited los angeles airport officers that are spread out only in specific areas throughout the airport. usually at at security checkpoints, i flew through this