An armed vigilante was arrested at an Arizona airport after a Christmas shooting that injured three people, police said.
Gunshots were heard Wednesday evening just after 9:40 p.m. near a restaurant outside Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport’s security checkpoints in Terminal 4, following an isolated fight that quickly turned violent.
An adult female and two adult males were shot, leaving the female with life-threatening injuries. Another man was stabbed during the incident.
“I truly believe this was a family dispute that escalated,” said Phoenix police Sgt. Mayra Reeson told reporters.
The shooting occurred after a group of people — who police said all knew each other — had a physical fight, leading one of them to pull a gun.
Marvin Miller, a cleaner at the airport for three years, said he heard three gunshots in succession from the ticket booth on the lower level of Terminal 4. AZ Centraal reports this.
“I heard three shots,” Miller told the outlet. ‘They were different from fireworks. Gunshots are a big difference.”
When officers arrived on the scene, they found three people with 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 woman and two adult men were shot and another was stabbed. Police say it was a completely separate incident.
Police said the man received a text message that led him to believe there was an active shooter at the airport
An underage girl was arrested in the garage together with the man with the stab wound in connection with the shooting. Possible charges are still unknown.
“Obviously this was scary, this was Christmas Eve and everyone is trying to get home,” Reeson said.
In what Reeson described as a “completely separate incident,” an armed man showed up at the airport that same night.
“This guy received a text saying he thought there was an active shooter in Sky Harbor,” Reeson said.
The man then got into a conflict with police officers, who subsequently arrested him outside the airport.
“There was no active shooter; There never was,” Reeson said.
It is unclear if the text message the man received about an active shooter was related to the other incident.
Officers were seen taking a man into custody without shoes or a shirt, moments before another officer was seen with two firearms, including a handgun, in an evidence bag around 11:30 p.m.
The identities of the two people arrested in the parking garage are still unknown, but the police have recovered one weapon.
Reeson noted that the man who showed up later that evening will also be jailed, but his charges are unclear at this time.
No other travelers were injured at the airport, but the incident led to the temporary closure of the security checkpoint and the suspension of Sky Train operations as a safety measure.
Police are still investigating whether the group came from Arizona, why they were at the airport and whether they were there to travel or for some other reason.
All those involved in the dispute were hospitalized and the three men are said to be in stable condition.
The incident was resolved shortly afterwards and airport operations were operational again.