PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities are investigating a Christmas shooting at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix that left three people injured by gunfire and another person stabbed. Police said the incident was related to a family dispute.
Phoenix police said the evening shooting happened at around 9:45 p.m. at an airport restaurant that is outside the security checkpoints in Terminal 4.
An adult female and two adult males were shot, leaving the female with injuries police describe as life-threatening. The two men were in stable condition and expected to survive, police said in a statement. The man hospitalized with at least one stab wound was in stable condition.
The group of people all knew each other and had a physical fight that led one of them pulling a gun, police said.
“I do believe that this was a family dispute that escalated,” Phoenix police Sgt. Mayra Reeson told reporters.
After the gunfire, a man and a girl were detained in an airport parking garage nearby. Police did not immediately release information on possible charges. They were still investigating why the group was at the airport, and whether they were traveling or were there for some other reason.
The gunfire led to the temporary closure of a security checkpoint at the terminal, the closure of some restaurants and a pause in service at the terminal's PHX Sky Train station.
“Of course this was scary, this was Christmas evening, everybody's trying to get home,” Reeson said.
In what Reeson described as a “completely unrelated” incident nearly two hours after the shooting and stabbing, she said a man showed up at the airport with guns. “This man received a text message that he believed there was an active shooter at Sky Harbor, Reeson said.
Investigators say the man handed his guns to other people at the airport before approaching an officer, yelled at the officer and didn’t follow his commands to stop, according to police. The officer took the man to the ground. During the struggle, he spat on an officer, police said.
Sky Harbor, one of the largest commercial airports in the U.S., is a hub for American Airlines and a main connecting point for passengers on Southwest and Frontier airlines.
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Associated Press Staff Writer Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.
