Poor communication was a key factor in delayed emergency response to a deadly shooting last November inside Los Angeles International Airport.
A new report presented by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti Tuesday morning shows phone systems and panic buttons inside LAX did not work properly the morning of November 1, 2013 when a shooting occurred inside Terminal 3 that killed one TSA officer and injured three others.
“I asked for this report to make sure that we do everything we can to ensure that we don’t depend on lucky, as well as the heroic work of our first responders,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “I also want to be clear that we got lucky that day. We’re lucky the shooter didn’t take more lives, we’re lucky that that day the casualty list wasn’t higher.”
The “After Action Report” was intended to evaluate and show how police, paramedics and others responded to the shooting.
It also showed that the first call to airport police was not completed because the caller ran for safety before saying what terminal they were calling from. After that, the phone system could not track where the call came from.
Once first-responders did arrive at the scene, they had trouble communicating because their radios did not operate together, said Garcetti.
Garcetti also said a new alert system that will appear in cellphones in the area will be created and alarms will be added to the terminals as a way to ensure this does not happen again.
One TSA officer was killed and three others were injured when a man opened fired inside LAX’s Terminal 3 last November.
