Thread: Police kill armed man who tried to buy plane ticket with fake ID at Ohio airport

Police kill armed man who tried to buy plane ticket with fake ID at Ohio airport


By JAMES QUEALLYcontact the reporter

Police shoot, kill person after confrontation at Port Columbus Airport in Ohio

The man who was shot and killed by police officers at an Ohio airport Wednesday was armed with multiple knives and, minutes before the deadly clash, tried to buy a plane ticket using identification that did not belong to him, investigators said.

Around 12:45 p.m. Eastern time, two Port Columbus Airport police officers gunned down the man, who had lunged at one officer with a knife before they opened fire, Columbus police spokesman Sgt. Rich Weiner said Wednesday.


Airport police shot and killed one person after a confrontation outside a terminal at the Port Columbus airport in Ohio, officials said.

The man, whose identity was being withheld by police, tried to buy a plane ticket with a woman's identification shortly before the shooting. He was rebuffed by the airline, then tried to buy a ticket with another form of identification, but the airline refused to make the sale.

Airport police were notified, and approached the man as he approached a "suspicious vehicle" that had been parked illegally for roughly 10 minutes, Weiner said.

“The initial confrontation between the officer and this man, there was nothing that led the officers to believe at the beginning that this was going to be a consensual conversation,” Weiner told reporters during a news conference.

When the man lunged with the knife, one officer opened fire, Weiner said. Police searched the man after he was down and found several other knives and other items "that alarmed them," he said.

The Columbus Police Department's bomb squad was called to the scene and searched the vehicle but found nothing of concern, Weiner said.

Police did not say where the man was attempting to fly.

Los Angeles Times UPDATE

2:46 p.m. - This post updated with comments made by a Columbus Police Department spokesman during a press conference

This post published at 11:52 a.m.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nation...107-story.html

Man shot at Port Columbus had earlier sought airline ticket

Knife-wielding man displayed bizarre behavior, police say

By Allison Manning, Theodore Decker & Jim Woods
The Columbus Dispatch • Thursday January 8, 2015 10:16 AM

A knife-wielding man who was shot and killed by airport police at Port Columbus yesterday first caught the attention of officers because of his odd behavior at an airline ticket counter and his illegally parked SUV, authorities said.

The man was identified by police this morning as 41-year-old Hashim Hanif Ibn Abdul-Rasheed. Police said he tried to buy an airline ticket to an undisclosed destination with a woman’s ID.

That occurred shortly before the 1 p.m. shooting just outside the terminal that startled workday travelers and slowed but didn’t halt airport operations.

Columbus police said they don’t know what prompted the man to arrive at the airport armed, it turned out, with knives.

>> Update: Man shot had history of mental illness>> Video: Witness describes shooting>> Video: Police say man with knives lunged

They said there was no indication that terrorism was involved, despite the shooting occurring on a day when world news was dominated by a deadly terrorist attack at the offices of a French newspaper.

Jim Shriner, a tow-truck driver who witnessed the encounter and largely corroborated the police account, said he was certain of one thing: The man appeared to do everything he could to get himself shot.

“I don’t know how he thought it was going to end,” said Shriner, owner of Broad & James Towing. “I feel horrible that somebody lost their life. At the same time, the officer tells you to stop, it’s time to stop.”

A team of Columbus police homicide detectives that investigates officer-involved shootings was called in by Columbus Regional Airport Authority police to spearhead the probe, which is standard procedure.

Sgt. Rich Weiner, a Columbus Police Division spokesman, gave this account:

The separate calls about the illegally parked SUV and the suspicious person at the ticket counter came in about 12:45 p.m. and quickly merged as the man walked up to the vehicle. By then, airport police had called for Shriner’s tow truck to take the SUV from where it was parked, in the area where passengers about to take flights from Port Columbus are being dropped off.
“It looked like a casual encounter at first, and then suddenly (the suspect) produced a knife and lunged at the officer and attempted to stab him,” Weiner said.

The man barely missed the officer, who fired a gun multiple times.

The man dropped to the ground but got up and came at officers again. Another officer fired multiple times, killing him not far from the north doors to the departures level of the terminal.

A search of the man’s body turned up more knives, Weiner said, although he wouldn’t say how many.

“The officers also discovered items on the suspect which prompted them to contact the Columbus Fire Bomb Squad, which also searched the suspect’s vehicle,” airport officials said in a statement. “Suspicious items were removed from the scene.” Details weren’t released.

Parts of the airport terminal were closed to passengers throughout the afternoon, until the SUV and surrounding area could be searched.

Shriner, the tow-truck driver, said officers already were struggling with the man as he pulled up. He heard two gunshots and saw the man fall and then stand up. Shriner didn’t see a weapon but said the man repeatedly put his hand into his waistband as though reaching for a gun while he closed in on two uniformed officers.

“He came at the officers, kept walking in a confrontational manner toward the officers, backed them up probably about 30 yards,” Shriner said.

Police had their guns drawn and were shouting commands at the man, who was also shouting, Shriner said. He couldn’t hear what the man was saying, but when the man backed the officers up to the terminal doors, one officer struck him on his legs with his baton.

The man continued to act aggressively and was shot and killed by a third, plainclothes, officer who had arrived, Shriner said. He said there wasn’t much distance between the man and the officers at that point. All three officers involved were Airport Authority police. Shriner said the man’s hostility was baffling and, from what he could see, left the officers with no option but to shoot.

“I don’t have any idea why it started, but it should have ended before it did,” he said.

Weiner said investigators will review all available surveillance video, which was not released yesterday.

None of the officers or bystanders was injured, and many travelers in the terminal moved about freely, saying they had no idea what had occurred just outside the airport doors.

Flights were delayed for about 80 minutes while the bomb squad examined the SUV and eventually cleared the scene, said Elaine Roberts, the chief executive officer of the airport authority.

She called the situation unprecedented at Port Columbus.

David Whitaker, vice president of business development and communications for the airport authority, said the man appeared to have acted alone. He said the airport had not received a threat.

Weiner said, “At this point, this is just a violent encounter between an armed man and the officers here.”

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...-shooting.html

Originally published January 8, 2015 at 9:56 AM | Page modified January 8, 2015 at 12:31 PM

Union: Ohio man shot at airport had frozen urine in vehicle

A bomb squad found containers of frozen urine in the vehicle of man who police say lunged at an airport officer with a knife and was fatally shot, a police union official Thursday.

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS and KANTELE FRANKO
Associated Press

HILLIARD, Ohio —A bomb squad found containers of frozen urine in the vehicle of man who police say lunged at an airport officer with a knife and was fatally shot, a police union official Thursday.

The suspicious material was confirmed as urine after the confrontation Wednesday at Port Columbus International Airport, said the local police union leader, Jason Pappas. It's not clear why the man had the containers.

Investigators say he had tried unsuccessfully to buy an airline ticket using a woman's ID, then got into the fatal confrontation with airport police after returning to his illegally parked vehicle.

Police identified the man as 41-year-old Hashim Hanif Ibn Abdul-Rasheed, of Columbus. No one answered the door Thursday at a Hillard address listed for him.

Police were investigating the man's background and why he was using a woman's ID.

After the first shots were fired, he got up and headed back toward the terminal, and a second airport officer shot him, Columbus police Sgt. Rich Weiner said. He was shot multiple times.

Pappas said three officers were involved in the confrontation. He said two uniformed airport officers approached the man, and one struggled with him and fired before retreating, at which point a detective came out of the airport and fired at the attacker.

Abdul-Rasheed had multiple knives on him, police said.

The first officer who fired suffered scrapes and bruises, but the police weren't seriously hurt, Pappas said. The officers will be on administrative leave for at least two days and will have counseling with a police psychologist, per standard procedure, he said.

Columbus city police are handling the investigation. They have not released surveillance video that is expected to show what happened.

Court records in Cuyahoga County, in northeastern Ohio, show Abdul-Rasheed was indicted in Cleveland in 1999 on charges including aggravated murder, aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery -- all with firearms specifications.

The court determined he was mentally ill subject to involuntary hospitalization and found him not guilty by reason of insanity in June 2000. He was committed to the maximum security unit of a psychiatric facility in Dayton.

He remained under court supervision for more than a decade, transitioning to a different behavioral health care facility, then a group home with full-time supervision in 2002, semi-supervised housing and eventually independent living. His commitment ended in December 2012, and the case was closed.

County records indicate the same defendant had been convicted of attempted felonious assault in 1995 under a plea deal. His five-to-10 year prison sentence was suspended, and he was put on probation and sentenced to community service and counseling.

Online court records don't indicate details of the crimes, and calls seeking more information from a division of the court clerk's office rang unanswered Thursday.

Neighbors at Abdul-Rasheed's apartment complex in suburban Columbus said they saw a man outside his apartment two nights ago screaming and pounding on the door. The man fit Abdul-Rasheed's description, but they couldn't say if it was him.

"He was just screaming, 'Why? Why?'" Tim Butts, whose apartment is across the parking lot, said Thursday.

Butts, a technology manager in the Columbus area, said at first he thought the man was joking around.

"It went on and on for about 10 minutes," Butts said. "He was just outside the apartment there, banging on the door a couple times, then starts screaming, looking everywhere with his hands in the air."

http://seattletimes.com/html/nationw...tshooting.html

This time it does sound as if the officers tried to control this guy by using non-lethal weapons. Unfortunately it also sounds as if they were dealing with a nut case, who wasn't going to respond to non-lethal control.
********************************
Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

If the police shot more people using stolen or fake ID

would we have fewer people stealing IDs or using fake ID?