Response to Attack at LAX Praised

Airport police and LAPD officers arrived on the scene seconds after the Fourth of July shooting at Los Angeles International Airport and quickly secured the crime scene, officials said Wednesday. But it remained unclear whether an elaborate camera system caught the event on tape, and some experts said the city should review its airport evacuation plans and approach to security.

Mayor James K. Hahn said, meanwhile, that he would increase police patrols at LAX.

As details continued to emerge about how various law enforcement agencies responded to the shooting in the Tom Bradley International Terminal, the consensus was that action was speedy and effective.

Airport police said they relied on a widely used training document that directs officers to immediately go to a shooting scene.

“We had people on the scene before the echo of gunshots died away,” said Bernard J. Wilson, chief of airport police, at an airport news conference Wednesday.

The morning of the shooting, one sergeant and seven airport police officers were in the Bradley terminal, according to a timeline compiled by airport police. Within 35 to 40 seconds--just as El Al airline security guards subdued and killed the Egyptian gunman--all eight officers arrived at the shooting scene, the report found.

Ten minutes later, almost two dozen airport police officers and commanders had arrived at the Israeli state airline’s upper-level ticket counter, according to the timeline.

Los Angeles Police Department officers also were nearby and joined airport police within moments, said LAPD Deputy Chief David Kalish.

“Officers arrived on the scene almost simultaneously [with airport police],” he said. “Together, we were able to stabilize the situation, secure the crime scene and facilitate the Fire Department’s response for medical needs.”

After El Al security guards stopped the shooter, airport police and the LAPD worked to secure the area, sequester witnesses for interviews, shut down airport roads so emergency vehicles could get through, and evacuate passengers, officials said.

Even as they praised each other for the coordinated response, the agencies recounted some initial disagreement about which agency should lead the investigation.

The LAPD typically takes charge of murder investigations at the airport, but in this case the FBI took over because of the possibility that the shooting was a terrorist act.

Authorities said they have no indication that the incident, which left three dead--including assailant Hesham Mohamed Hadayet--and two wounded was motivated by terrorism, although they haven’t ruled it out. They say they are also investigating whether the incident was a hate crime or random violence.

Hahn commended airport police, the LAPD and the FBI on Wednesday for their response to the shooting.

The mayor said he would ask the city agency that operates the airport to keep a beefed-up LAPD presence there until at least January.

To do so, the airport agency will pay overtime to about 60 off-duty officers, who will relieve airport police at security checkpoints so they can patrol the terminals.

Airport police officers hired after the Sept. 11 attacks will replace LAPD personnel early next year after they undergo security training.

“Our goal is to prevent criminal acts from occurring,” said Hahn, who was flanked by a retinue of city and airport officials at a dais near the United Airlines ticket counter. “We also have to be there to respond if they do.”

Several security issues emerged at LAX after the shooting, including the placement of security cameras and whether evacuation procedures make passengers vulnerable to an attack outside the terminal.

Immediately after the shooting, the FBI asked passengers who shot still pictures or video footage of the incident to provide the material to the agency, prompting speculation that the slayings were not videotaped by the airport’s extensive camera system.

The FBI does have videotape of Hadayet getting out of his car in parking structure No. 4 and walking into the Bradley terminal, a law enforcement source said.

But it’s unclear whether video exists of the gunman at the ticket counter, or of the shooting itself, the source said.

Hundreds of cameras are installed throughout the 3,500-acre facility to watch the airfield, traffic operations, airline gate areas, baggage claim and security checkpoints. Cameras are not widely used in LAX ticket lobbies because they have not been considered high-risk areas, an airport source said.

Security cameras won’t stop all crime, but they may provide a deterrent or help officials analyze an event, said Brian Jenkins, a senior advisor to the president of the Rand Corp. and a former member of the White House Commission on Aviation and Security.

Besides surveillance, there’s also the issue of how to protect thousands of passengers when a crime occurs at the airport. In last Thursday’s incident, airport officials said they didn’t need to order an evacuation of the facility’s international terminal because most travelers left the building themselves after the attack.

But security experts said that immediately after the shooting, passengers who milled around on sidewalks outside the terminal could have been vulnerable to attack if Hadayet had had accomplices.

“Passengers evacuated from the sterile area are absolutely sitting ducks, unless a react team simultaneously responds to observe and protect them against perimeter threats,” said Brian Sullivan, a retired Federal Aviation Administration security agent.

He added that a decision by airport police to shut down the airport’s U-shaped roadway on both the upper and lower levels in front of the terminal went a long way toward protecting passengers waiting outside for news of their flights.

But the incident, Sullivan said, like so many evacuations that have occurred since the Sept. 11 attacks, provides officials with an opportunity to craft evacuation plans that will keep terrorists off balance.

For example, he said, officials should vary where they take passengers to wait out an evacuation. Protection also must be provided for the crowds, including from sharpshooters on nearby buildings, he added.

In the end, city officials will need to decide how far they want to go to protect passengers in public areas of the airport.

“If we have a drive-by shooting in South-Central Los Angeles, we don’t talk about a breach of security on Crenshaw Boulevard because it’s a public place,” Jenkins said.

He added, “What we are doing right now is protecting airplanes, not airports, and therefore security is designed to keep explosives and weapons off airplanes--but not keeping villains out of airports.”

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Times staff writer Greg Krikorian contributed to this report.