Officials call L.A. airport's shortcomings in shooting last year a nationwide failure/embarrassment
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles International Airport is inexcusably lacking in its capacity to deal with a crisis, local and national government officials said, calling the communication lapses described in a report on last year's deadly airport shooting everything from a "failure" and an "embarrassment."
While all were quick to praise the Transportation Security Administration officer who was killed and the officers who took down and arrested his attacker, they said the airport's emergency response, hindered by communication problems and poor coordination, had to change quickly and thoroughly.
"I would say this is a nationwide failure so far," Mayor Eric Garcetti said, "for us to be 13 years almost, 12 ½ years after 9/11 still trying to figure out a way to talk to each other frustrates me as a policymaker, frustrates me as the mayor of the second biggest city in America, frustrates me as a leader of this airport too, which is consistently a target for international terrorism and domestic terrorism."
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, whose district includes the airport, was more blunt, saying she was "shocked and dismayed" at the system that "clearly failed on this critical day."
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/harsh-reactions-lapses-during-la-airport-attack
