McCaul: TSA, law enforcement need better coordination
Today on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee spoke EXCLUSIVELY to CNN about the ongoing investigation and the aftermath of the LAX shooting.
Video and transcript of the interview are available after the jump.
VIDEO: McCaul: Shooting suspect planned to die
CROWLEY (on-camera): Good morning from Washington. I’m Candy Crowley. Authorities have charged the man who opened fire at LAX Airport with two felonies, including the murder of a federal officer. Witnesses say the gunman, 23-year-old Paul Ciancia, killed 39-year-old Gerardo Hernandez (ph), the first TSA officer killed in the line of duty in the agency’s history. Two additional agents were wounded.
Joining me now from Austin, Texas is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. I think in the aftermath of this, the question I hear most often is —
MCCAUL: Thank you.
CROWLEY: — why did he do this? What do you know about that? I know you’ve been able to see some of the notes that he wrote. What do you think the motivation was here?
MCCAUL: I think mental illness, once again, kind of like the Navy Yard shooter that we saw. The suicide note that I read talks a lot about killing TSA agents, and he said if I just kill one, my mission is accomplished, and unfortunately, he did do that the other day and the other thing he wanted to talk about was how easy it is to bring a gun into an airport and do something just like he did. And my sympathies go out to the Hernandez Family and the other victims, this tragic day. As you mentioned, he’s the first TSA agent officer to be killed in the line of duty.
CROWLEY: Congressman, it’s our understanding that much of the literature he had on him was both anti-government, anti-TSA, but you’re telling that there was also — that his intent was suicide after he did damage?
MCCAUL: Well, it’s clearly one of those notes that reads, you know, “I’m going to go kill people, and I don’t want to kill civilians,” with the idea that he’s going to die at the end of this. And, you know, the other thing that I think was equally as tragic was that his family in New Jersey had notified New Jersey local authorities, who then in turn notified the local L.A. police who had actually visited the suspect’s home the morning of the shooting and missed him by literally probably 45 minutes.
And so, this is how we typically stop a lot of these things is through good intelligence and if family members or friends see a loved one who is exhibiting signs of mental illness, that — and suicidal tendencies, which he did describe in his e-mails to his family members, then I think it’s incumbent upon the family members and friends to call this to local authorities. They actually did that in this case, and unfortunately, really missed the suspect by a matter of minutes.
CROWLEY: Right. When you look at what happened at least in so far as we know the logistics of it, we know that this suspect was able to take a lot of ammunition and his weapon down the corridor where there were no armed police officers at that point. The TSA, obviously, is unarmed.
We also know that Los Angeles had moved to kind of these roving patrols throughout the airport as opposed to having for sure one armed guard at a security check point. Do you see anything worth rethinking right now?
MCCAUL: I talked to the director of TSA, John Pistole, yesterday. We talked about a review of the policies at airports. Every airport is a little bit different, but the coordination with the local police is always key because, remember, TSA officers are not armed. It’s the local police that provide the perimeter security, if you will, that’s a little more of a soft target outside the check points.
And so, what we want to do is conduct and I want to work with the director of TSA to look at how are we coordinating with the locals at the airports of security, police officers to see if there’s something we can do better or differently? I will commend the officers, though, for a very quick and effective response. As you point out, he had multiple rounds that could have killed so many more people. And we’re fortunate that did not happen, but it was unfortunate that an officer was killed.
CROWLEY: I’ve seen reports recently that the suspect entered the exit at the security point, in other words, the guard that you kind of walk by as you’re departing an airport and coming out of where the actual gates are. Is that your understanding, and that place has always struck me as kind of an open hole.
MCCAUL: Yes. It’s confusing in the accounts that I’ve read, but he did — he shot the TSA officer who was checking documents, went up an escalator, came back down, shot him again and went through the security point at that standpoint. So, I think it’s important that we have the local law enforcement really at different points at the airport to protect not only the perimeter but also things that could happen through security check point.
The other thing that’s important, Candy, there are teams out there, they’re called Viper teams and what they are, the TSA runs are essentially detection and deterrent teams and I know in talking to Director Pistole, he wants to maybe further utilize these teams at airports to make sure that the American people are safe and the traveling public are safe when they go to our airports.
I think that with better coordination with local law enforcement should help tremendously, however, having said that, it’s very difficult to stop these types of attacks. Anybody can show up as we saw in the navy yard with the shotgun, in this case with the semi- automatic, and you know, it’s like a shopping mall outside the perimeter.
It’s almost like an open shopping mall. So, it’s very difficult to protect, but these Viper teams, I think, with local law enforcement can’t provide that needed security. We are going to be reviewing this along with the director of TSA.
CROWLEY: Great. Congressman Michael McCaul thank you for joining us this morning. Appreciate, your input.
MCCAUL: Thank you.