Photograph by Florencio Briones
One Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employee has been killed and a further four have been injured after an armed man approached the document checkpoint before security and opened fire at Los Angeles LAX airport.
At around 09:30am local time (16:30 GMT), a man in terminal 3 started to shoot at passengers and security personnel with a rifle.
Emergency vehicles and armed police were quickly on the scene to evacuate those caught up in the chaos and to search for the gunman. Aerial footage from local television showed at least two people being treated for injuries.
Outgoing flights have been temporarily suspended, but the suspect is reported to have been arrested by police.
In response to the incident at LAX, New York’s airports are reportedly increasing “high-visibility heavy-weapon patrol”, with more heavily armed security personnel on patrol to try and deter any possible copycat gunmen.
