Gunman who killed 5 at Fort Lauderdale airport is sentenced to life in prison
The man who admitted to killing five people during a shooting rampage at the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., airport last year was sentenced Friday to life in prison.
This sentencing comes after Esteban Santiago — also identified as Esteban Santiago-Ruiz in court documents — pleaded guilty earlier this year. As part of his plea agreement, Santiago admitted that he went to the airport on Jan. 6, 2017, and opened fire in the baggage-claim area, shooting at other travelers until he ran out of ammunition. Federal prosecutors, in turn, agreed under the plea deal not to seek a death sentence in the case.
“While nothing can ever heal the wounds inflicted by the defendant’s unspeakable and horrific acts of violence, we hope that the life sentence imposed today provides at least some sense of justice for the victims and their loved ones,” Benjamin G. Greenberg, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said in a statement.
The massacre at one of the country’s busiest air-traffic hubs set off a panic that shut down the airport and sent passengers fleeing onto the tarmac. And the rampage drew scrutiny — not for the first or last time — toward what law enforcement officials did before and after a mass shooting in Florida.
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What unfolded inside Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport that afternoon was brief, bloody and seemingly indiscriminate.
Santiago bought a ticket from Anchorage to South Florida and traveled “with no luggage except his gun case,” which contained a Walther 9mm pistol and two loaded magazines, according to the statement of facts he signed, along with his attorneys and federal prosecutors. He checked the weapon and ammunition and flew to Fort Lauderdale with a stop in Minneapolis.
After arriving at Terminal 2, he retrieved his gun case and went to the bathroom to put the weapon in his waistband. He then walked out to the baggage area, which was filled with other travelers, including some preparing to go on the cruises that draw many tourists to South Florida.
Santiago pulled out his gun and began “firing at victims’ heads and bodies 15 times for approximately two minutes,” according to the statement he signed. When Santiago ran out of ammunition, he paused to load a second magazine and then kept firing until he was out of bullets.
He then dropped his gun, fell to the floor and was arrested by deputies from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, which provides law enforcement for the airport.
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Fifteen shell casings from the gun were later collected from the scene. For nearly every bullet, there was a life ended or transformed by sudden, terrifying violence.
Five people were killed: Mary Louise Amzibel, 69; Michael John Oehme, 56; Olga M. Woltering, 84; Shirley Wells Timmons, 70; and Terry Michael Andres, 62. Their names were listed in the agreement Santiago signed saying that each of their deaths was directly caused by gunshot wounds he inflicted. Six other people were also seriously injured by his bullets, the agreement said, including one person shot in the head, who lost his left eye, and another person shot in the face.
With Santiago’s attack, the airport joined a list of other spaces scarred by gunfire in recent years, including churches, movie theaters, concert venues, offices and school campus after school campus. His was among 30 active-shooter incidents in 2017, according to the FBI, a tally that also included the Las Vegas massacre that killed 58 people and the Sutherland Springs, Tex., church rampage that killed 26.
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The airport attack also prompted questions about the actions of law enforcement officials. An independent review found that authorities failed to coordinate their response and said it was unclear who was in charge, with confusion helping fuel a frenzied second evacuation amid false rumors of a second shooter.
Share this articleShareBroward County Sheriff Scott Israel’s office drew a much louder wave of criticism this year after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The sheriff’s office and the FBI were sharply criticized for failing to act on repeated warnings that the alleged shooter in Parkland was a threat to attack a school, while the sheriff’s office also acknowledged that a deputy at the school failed to go inside to confront the shooter while he was still firing.
Two days after that massacre, the FBI said it had failed to pursue a tip specifically warning of “the potential of [the alleged shooter] conducting a school shooting.” That admission was the third time in as many years that a mass-shooter suspect in Florida had previously come to the bureau’s attention being accused in an attack.
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After the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting, the FBI said Santiago previously had voluntarily walked into one of the bureau’s offices and made bizarre, nonthreatening statements. Santiago told the FBI that “he did not wish to harm anyone,” the bureau said; he was admitted to a mental-health facility afterward. In 2016, the FBI said it had previously scrutinized the gunman who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and killed 49 people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando that year; the bureau had determined he was not a threat.
Santiago, an Iraq War veteran, had said he believed the government was trying to control his mind, complaining that it was forcing him to watch Islamic State videos. Investigators have said that he drew regular police attention for reports of domestic violence in his Alaska hometown, making him one of many mass shooters or terrorist suspects accused of such violence at home before going on to attack elsewhere.
His attorneys had said in court filings that while he was “mentally ill,” he did not appear to be incompetent to stand trial. In a filing this year from federal prosecutors, they said the government and the defense both agreed that Santiago was competent to proceed with the case.
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Santiago was sentenced Friday to five consecutive terms of life imprisonment and six consecutive terms of 20 years each, according to the Justice Department. His attorney with the Federal Public Defender’s Office declined to comment on the sentencing, citing office policy.
Further reading:
Active shooters usually get their guns legally and then target specific victims, FBI says
Mass violence in the U.S. usually follows warning signs from attackers, report finds
The Washington Post’s database examining gun violence at schools
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