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Cops Shoot Suspect at Miami Airport

Shooting slowed things down as people tried to leave before Irma
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 8, 2017 12:19 AM CDT
Cops Shoot Suspect at Miami Airport
This photo provided by Shawn Woodford shows the scene on the tarmac at the Miami airport on Thursday.   (Shawn Woodford via AP)

Police say they're investigating an officer-involved shooting Thursday night at the Miami airport that shut down a terminal as people looked to leave Florida ahead of Hurricane Irma. Miami-Dade Police said in a tweet that the situation involved a single suspect and is under control. WPLG reports that the suspect was a man with a knife trying to get to the roof of Concourse J, which was temporarily closed. Witnesses say the man appeared drunk. The shooting comes as many travelers are trying to get out of the path of the Category 5 hurricane, which devastated a string of Caribbean islands and is on its way to Florida.

Shawn Woodford and his wife were about to board a flight home to Canada when firetrucks and police cars came "flying across the tarmac" and "surrounded a plane at the gate next to us," he tells the AP. The plane at the gate Woodford identified was a LATAM Airlines flight to Santiago, Chile, according to Miami's departures board. A short time later, police came into the terminal and "said 'everybody out of here' and evacuated the entire concourse," he says. It wasn't immediately clear how the closure was affecting flights. Miami's airport departures notifications showed several delays for flights at J gates. But Woodford was able to board his flight for Toronto at a different concourse hours later. (More Miami stories.)

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