The man who killed a TSA officer at Los Angeles International Airport was on a suicide mission to show “how easy it is to bring a gun into an airport,” according to a chilling manifesto he left behind.
The one-page note penned by accused killer Paul Ciancia, a 23-year-old New Jersey native, reads, in part, “ ‘I’m going to kill people, and I don’t want to kill civilians’ — with the idea that he’s going to die at the end of this,’’ said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, on Sunday.
He “wanted to talk about how easy it is to bring a gun into an airport and do something just like he did,” McCaul, who saw the note, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.’’
Ciancia blasted his way through Terminal 3 of LAX with a .223-caliber assault rifle before being shot in the mouth by cops, authorities have said. The unemployed motorcycle mechanic briefly talked to investigators before being rushed to the hospital, and told them he acted alone.
Ciancia was driven to LAX in a black Hyundai by a roommate and did not have a ticket for a flight, investigators said.
The roommate reportedly didn’t know of the twisted plot that left TSA agent Gerardo Hernandez, a 39-year-old father of two, dead and four others, including two TSA workers, injured. Ciancia remained “unresponsive” at a California hospital on Sunday.
Also Sunday, Port Authority police union officials revealed they asked TSA chief John Pistole a year ago to help put measures in place that might have cut short Ciancia’s deadly mission.
PAPD union President Paul Nunziato and an LAX police official met with Pistole last year over several requests, including for armed, tactically trained officers to be posted no more than 300 feet from TSA screening points, a Port Authority union spokesman said.