An armed vigilante was arrested at an Arizona airport following a Christmas shooting that left three people injured, police said.
Gunshots rang out close to a restaurant located just outside the security checkpoints of Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport around 9:40 pm on Wednesday evening. The incident stemmed from a fight that escalated into a violent encounter.
An adult female and two adult males were shot, leaving the female with life-threatening injuries. A separate male was stabbed during the incident.
‘I do believe that this was a family dispute that escalated,’ Phoenix Police Sgt. Mayra Reeson told reporters.
Two people were detained by police.
The shooting came after a group of people – who police said were all familiar with each other – had a physical fight that prompted one of them to pull out a gun.
Marvin Miller, a cleaner at the airport for three years, said he heard three gunshots in succession from the lower level ticketing area of Terminal 4, AZ Central reported.
‘I heard three shots,’ Miller told the outlet. ‘They were different from fireworks. Gunshots are a big difference.’
When officers arrived at the scene, they found three people suffering from gunshot wounds and another in a Terminal 4 parking garage with ‘at least one stab wound,’ Reeson said.
An armed vigilante was arrested at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Arizona on Wednesday evening shortly after an adult female and two adult males were shot and another stabbed in what police said was a completely separate incident
Police said that the man received a text message that made him believe there was an active shooter at the airport
An underage girl along with the man with the stab wound were detained in the garage in connection with the shooting. Possible charges remain unknown.
‘Of course this was scary, this was Christmas evening, everybody’s trying to get home,’ Reeson said.
In what Reeson described as being a ‘completely separate incident,’ an armed man showed up at the airport that very same night.
‘This man received a text message that he believed there was an active shooter at Sky Harbor,’ Reeson said.
The man proceeded to get into a dispute with police officers, who then arrested him outside of the airport.
‘There was no active shooter; there never was,’ Reeson said.
It’s unclear whether the text the man received about an active shooter was related to the other incident.
Officers were seen taking a man without shoes or a shirt into custody, moments before another officer was seen carrying two firearms, including a handgun, in an evidence bag at around 11:30pm.
The identities of the two people detained in the parking garage are still unknown, but police did retrieve one gun.
Reeson noted that the man who showed up later that night will be booked into jail as well, but his charges are unclear at this time.
No other travelers at the airport were injured, but the incident did prompt the temporary closure of the security checkpoint, as well as the Sky Train operations to be paused as a safety precaution.
Police are still investigating if the group was from Arizona, why they were at the airport and whether they were there as a means to travel or for another reason.
All of those involved in the dispute were hospitalized, with the three men said to be in stable condition.
The incident was resolved shortly after and airport operations were back up and running.
