Washington, DC - September 7, 2916 - U.S. Representative Kathleen Rice, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Transportation Security, called today for a hearing to investigate emergency preparedness and response procedures at American airports in the wake of two recent incidents at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in California.
On the night of August 14th, reports of an active shooter at JFK, which later proved to be false, led to a scene of confusion and chaos inside the airport as authorities worked to evacuate two terminals and search for a shooter, while frightened travelers reportedly stampeded through hallways and even self-evacuated onto the tarmac. Following the incident, accounts have indicated that not all airport employees receive training on how to respond to active shooter situations, terrorist attacks, or other large-scale emergencies.
The New York Daily News reported that one security guard at JFK stated that he had never been trained to handle large crowds and didn’t know of a designated evacuation site. A similar scene unfolded at LAX on August 28th, when “hundreds of panicked passengers stampeded into the street and onto the tarmac” after reports of an active shooter, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In a letter to Subcommittee Chairman John Katko, Rice notes that the Gerardo Hernandez Airport Security Act of 2015, legislation authored by Chairman Katko and signed into law last year, requires the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to confirm that all airports have incident response plans for events such as an active shooter or act of terrorism, including evacuation plans and communications plans for employees and contractors within the airport perimeter.
Rice urged Katko to hold a hearing on the two recent events at JFK and LAX in order to assess how airports are implementing the national Active Shooter Mitigation model and to investigate how airports can implement comprehensive emergency response plans and ensure that all employees, including contract employees, have the information and training they need to execute the plans in the event of an active shooter, terrorist attack or other emergency situation.
“The recent incidents at JFK and LAX have made it clear that our airports are not fully prepared to respond to active shooter situations, which are increasingly becoming terrorists’ preferred method of attack,” said Representative Kathleen Rice. “Given the threats we face right now, we need to expect and prepare for these kinds of emergencies. If there are reports of an active shooter, airport workers should know immediately how to respond and what procedures to follow. That clearly wasn’t the case in these two incidents, so we need to find out why, and we need to ensure that every airport in this country has a comprehensive emergency response plan in place and that all airport employees get the training they need to execute that plan if and when the time comes.”
The full text of Rice’s letter is available here.