HOUSTON—A man shot himself at Bush Intercontinental Airport in north Houston early Thursday afternoon, the Houston Police Department confirmed with KHOU 11 News.
The suspect walked into the ticket area inside Terminal B around 1:35 p.m. and fired at least two shots into the air with an AR-15 rifle, according to witnesses.
A McDonald’s employee who works at the airport saw the whole thing.
"As soon as he walked in, he just automatically started shooting quickly," said the employee named Kendra Carrizales. "And we hear two shots and we just automatically started running. We ran all the way to the back."
The HPD source said an air marshal fired at the suspect, but missed. The man then pulled out a pistol and shot himself, the captain said.
"We just saw the dude walking in, and he was already suicidal because he put the gun to his head," Carrizales said.
The suspect was taken away in an ambulance, but an HPD officer at the airport said he didn’t survive.
There are no other reports of injuries. But several employees and passengers were shaken by the shooting.
"It was traumatic it really was, it was too much going on. Everybody was running, and all that stuff, it was a lot going on," Carrizales said.
Dale Howard, who was at the airport to pick up his sister for a family funeral, was on the lower level when the chaos erupted.
“Right off the bat there were two shots, about an eight to 10-second delay, two more shots, a short delay, then a fifth shot,” he said.
After that, people were running in panic and trying to get out of dodge.
“There was a bunch of screaming, a bunch of people running, people coming down the escalator the wrong way getting away from it, leaving their bags on the thing," Howard said. "There was a banner up there and I really couldn’t see who was involved, but police came out of the headquarters up there and I directed them upstairs.”
Terminal B has been closed while police investigate the shooting scene. They’ve already located one bullet in the ceiling, according to an HPD source.
The FBI is assisting with the investigation.
A ground stop is in effect for arriving traffic at Bush IAH, according to the FAA website. That means several planes are stuck on the tarmac until the ground stop is lifted.
Bet his guns were legal.