What I experienced as a passenger in LAX when the bullets started to fly

Brooke’s Note: Yesterday, Friday, Nov. 1, Jason Lahita was flying home to honor his father. Next thing he knew, he was worried about his children having a father. Jason has honored us — his work and industry community — by sharing just what happened on Friday at LAX, an incident that resulted in the death of a TSA agent and topped world news.

At 9:01 a.m. I sent a text to my wife about our plans for the week.

I had also just sent one to my brother, annoyed that my flight was delayed by two hours due to Jersey weather. Had it taken off on time, I would not have been there for what happened next. I went back to The Economist. Angela Merkel is pissed she’s been tapped, and why this is bad for the general state of things.

Then … a scream. A strange crowd-noise, people rushing into our area, panicked, yelling “shooter!” “There’s a shooter!” “Run!” I stood up suddenly, and looked back at people running into the waiting area of Terminal 3. I don’t remember faces, or details, or words that ensued. I remember hesitating, dancing in place as I considered the threat, in the span of seconds.

I recall thinking: “My wife, Annie always says: Remember you are a father, and think of your children” — and so I ran. I left my luggage. I remember one guy diving or possibly falling under a row of chairs. This memory is hazy. I recall a lady tripping over luggage running. I ran too. We ran as a group towards the nearest exit to the tarmac.

Then more oddness — I helped a woman, in slow motion take her kid’s stroller, with him in it, down the stairs to the runway. We paused, all collectively, at the middle landing of the stairs. We looked at each other, and I recall thinking that her five year old was way too big to be in the stroller and should probably be on foot, running.

'You’ve been shot?’

A guy comes out from above, and yells down, “What are you doing? There’s a shooter! He’s shooting people! Lets go!” So the kid pops out of the stroller, but for some reason I still help her with it, empty. We get to the bottom, and run, faster.

By this point, some people have run so far, so fast, that they need to be corralled by plane controllers, lest they run onto the flight line and literally get hit by planes. The flight guys are chasing them, and yelling at them. They come back. We’re all standing around.

I notice a group of blue-shirted TSA officers standing together. I jog over. “What’s going on guys? Is there a shooter?” And the reply: “Yes, a lone shooter, as far as we know, and he’s been shot.” She gestures to her male colleague, who is on the phone with someone. And so I ask him: “Dude, you’ve been shot? Is the bullet in your leg or are you just grazed?” Not sure why I called him dude. He replies: “Just grazed man.” And then goes back to his chat.

At that point. I knew it was real. I hadn’t seen the shooter, but had seen a TSA agent who had been shot. “Do you need anything?” “Can I help?” These questions seemed odd considering that these were the people who had just screened me coming through.

Bus to nowhere

They said no, and the shot guy went into a separate bus and they all left. I hung around, and marveled at the fact that all I had on me was my rolled-up Economist. Everyone seemed confused, out of sorts. We were milling about aimlessly, not sure if this shooter was coming out or already contained. And then we were ringed by buses. We all got on, destination unknown.

Soon we were in the Tom Bradley Terminal. I wandered in and tossed my Economist into the nearest bin (which I would later regret when my phone died and I was sorely in need of reading material). Then I spoke to a man who claimed to be 20 feet from the shooter when he opened up. He seemed strangely matter-of-fact.

I wandered upstairs, once in the Tom Bradley area, because no one else seemed to be up there, and started looking out at the large crowd gathering. I counted the helicopters: seven. At any moment, someone would show up to tell us who had just fled Terminal 3, and what was what. Tell us we were safe and everything was OK.

Robert, Toby and Kelsey… in it
together.

But that didn’t happen. Two girls approached: Toby, who was taking a flight to New York to run the marathon, and Kelsey, who had lost her shoes. Neither had a phone. So they shared mine, and in the process I got to know them. See: What RIABiz reporter Kelly O’Mara experienced running the Boston Marathon yesterday.

When Toby walked up, she remarked that I had Brooks running shoes on. I did. She is a Brooks sales rep for a large region of SoCal. She really wanted to make a phone call. And I have to say that after feeling so utterly useless and scared for the preceding hour, I was happy to oblige. These were my new terminal friends.

Kid with AR-15

Kelsey would have a turn on the phone too. She had lost her shoes because she was in that thing that scans your whole body and had her hands over her head when the shooter started in. The TSA people encouraged her to run, and then they ran, and so did she. What would you do if a kid with an AR-15 walks up and starts shooting people near you? I was not in her general area and I ran, and fast.

Toby was about to run the Marathon. She still might. She is determined. If she does, she may be slow due to being tired, but she will have survived a shooter near Gate 30 (the closest one to the security checkpoint). At the gate, Toby had helped a mom and her baby. She told me her story, that she actually started running off with another woman’s baby, then realized it was not her baby, and turned back, returning the child to its petrified mother. Toby should win the NYC marathon by default, because she is that damn courageous.

GiGi at the mike

And then Robert rolled in. He came in on a bus full of “others”, i.e.: not actually in Terminal 3 when it went down, but still now experiencing the bad bits. He was funny, and pointed out fairly quickly that there was nary an official in command. He had a point.

GiGi, Southwest Airlines supervisor — she’s
under the 140 on the cell
phone — reinforced how doing your
job can be heroic.

Enter GiGi. In reality she had been there already… GiGi is the Southwest Airlines supervisor who took command. GiGi (pronounced zheee-zheee) made the entire group comfortable. We’re talking about 1000 people in the Tom Bradley terminal. I walked up to at least two airport cops and they asked me “what have you heard?” So I told them. And then they said: “That’s what I heard too.” They either knew nothing or were told to say nothing. Either way, it was unsettling. No disrespect, but there was no one senior on-site with us. Only GiGi on the mike.

GiGi said: “Our procedure is . . . “ “Our way of handling this is . . . “ She was communicating! And on message, telling everyone in the room why we should focus on things other than the shooting. Not a single cop, or authoritative person, stepped up to the mike.

One cool head

GiGi at one point asked over the open mike if there was a police officer who could come forward and speak to the security situation. There was not. All of the cops on site were professional and answered questions when asked, but none would step up to the mike.

I eventually left to return to my home in L.A. My bags held still at the Crime Scene, Terminal 3. I will not get to go home to New Jersey tomorrow to honor my dad, the New Jersey Rheumatologist of the Year (Should be the Decade. He’s that good.) But GiGi should be the Airline Representative of the Year. Because she is that good. That calm. That confident. And got us through it.

Is there a lesson here? No. Or perhaps. . . the lesson would be that you should go home and call someone you love, and say nice things. You should go squeeze your kid. You should value every second. The people I met today were special people I would otherwise not have known.

In times like these a GiGi is born. And for all the bastards that might walk up and start shooting, there is a glimmer of hope, that we’re not all doomed.

Jason Lahita has opened up to us poignantly and masterfully before. See: How my experiences with RIA pioneers, and the love of my mother, inspired me to a different breakaway story. Our appreciation is great.

He is the managing partner of Financial Communications Partners (www.ficommpartners.com), a specialist communications firm that works with financial advisors and advisory-oriented B2B firms to raise their profile, put forth their messages and market their hard-fought credibility.