The man police say opened fire with a gun from his checked baggage at a Florida airport had a history of mental health problems — some of which followed his military service in Iraq — and was receiving psychological treatment at his home in Alaska, his relatives said Friday after the deadly shooting.
“Only thing I could tell you was when he came out of Iraq , he wasn’t feeling too good,” his uncle, Hernan Rivera, told The Record newspaper (http://bit.ly/2j04ghF ).
Esteban Santiago , 26, deployed in 2010 as part of the Puerto Rico National Guard, spending a year with an engineering battalion, according to Guard spokesman Maj. Paul Dahlen.
In recent years, Santiago had been living in Anchorage , Alaska, his brother, Bryan Santiago, told The Associated Press from Puerto Rico. Bryan Santiago said his brother’s girlfriend had recently called the family to alert them to his treatment.
In November, Esteban told FBI agents in Alaska that the government was controlling his mind and was forcing him to watch Islamic State group videos, a law enforcement official said. The official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke Friday on condition of anonymity.
The FBI agents notified the police after the interview with Esteban Santiago , who took him in for a mental health evaluation.
Bryan Santiago said his brother never spoke to him directly about his medical issues.
“We have not talked for the past three weeks,” Bryan Santiago said. “That’s a bit unusual … I’m in shock. He was a serious person … He was a normal person.”
Esteban Santiago was born in New Jersey but moved to Puerto Rico when he was 2, his brother said. He grew up in the southern coastal town of Penuelas before joining the Guard in 2007.
Since returning from Iraq , Santiago served in the Army Reserves and the Alaska National Guard in Anchorage. He was serving as a combat engineer in the Guard before his discharge for “unsatisfactory performance,” said Lt. Col. Candis Olmstead, a spokeswoman. His military rank upon discharge was E3, private 1st class, and he worked one weekend a month with an additional 15 days of training yearly, Olmstead said.
She would not elaborate on his discharge, but the Pentagon said he went AWOL several times and was demoted and discharged.
Still, he’d had some successes during his military career, being awarded a number of medals and commendations including the Iraq Campaign Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.
His uncle and aunt in New Jersey were trying to make sense of what they were hearing about Santiago after his arrest at the Fort Lauderdale airport. FBI agents arrived at their house to question them, and reporters swarmed around.
Maria Ruiz told The Record that her nephew had recently become a father and was struggling.
“It was like he lost his mind,” she said in Spanish of his return from Iraq . “He said he saw things.”
Santiago was flying from Anchorage on a Delta flight and had checked only one piece of luggage, which contained the gun.
Santiago was charged in a domestic violence case in January 2016, damaging a door when he forced his way into a bathroom at his girlfriend’s Anchorage home. The woman told officers he yelled at her to leave, strangled her and smacked her on the side of the head, according to charging documents.
A month later municipal prosecutors said he violated the conditions of his release when officers found him at her home during a routine check. He told police he had lived there since he was released from custody the previous month. His Anchorage attorney, Max Holmquist, declined to discuss his client.
Law enforcement officers were at the girlfriend’s home Friday afternoon, and officers guarding the property outside told a reporter who approached the home to step away.
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Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico ; Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; Rachel D’Oro and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage , Alaska; and Lolita C. Baldor and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to show Santiago served in the Alaska National Guard in Anchorage , not Fairbanks, per new information from the Guard .
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By Zachary Fagenson
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) – An Iraq war veteran took a gun out of his checked luggage and opened fire in a crowded baggage claim area at Fort Lauderdale’s airport on Friday, killing five people, months after he showed up at an FBI office behaving erratically.
Esteban Santiago, 26, who was taken into custody immediately following the shooting and questioned at length, was expected to face federal charges in the shooting rampage, said George Piro, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s office in Miami.
Piro said investigators had not ruled out terrorism as a possible motive in the rampage and were reviewing the suspect’s recent travel.
Santiago, who had served in the U. S. military, had arrived in Ft. Lauderdale shortly before 1 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) on a connecting flight from Alaska, authorities said, when he retrieved a 9mm semi-automatic handgun from his checked luggage and began firing indiscriminately.
Broward County Commissioner Chip LaMarca said on Twitter that the gunman went into a restroom to load his weapon and came out firing. Witnesses told MSNBC television he only stopped after running out of ammunition, at which point he surrendered to police.
Cellphone video posted on social media showed travelers kneeling and treating victims on the floor next to a carousel. At least two victims had pools of blood from apparent head wounds.
The gunman, who wore a “Star Wars” T-shirt, said nothing as he fired, witnesses told MSNBC.
“This is a senseless act of evil,” Florida Governor Rick Scott told reporters.
A White House spokesman said President Barack Obama had spoken to Scott and Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief and had extended his condolences to the loved ones of the victims.
In addition to the five killed, eight others were wounded by gunfire and some three dozen were taken to local hospitals with bruises or broken bones suffered in the chaos surrounding the shooting massacre.
Piro said that Santiago had turned up at an FBI office in Anchorage in November of last year behaving erratically and was turned over to local police, who took him to a medical facility for a mental evaluation.
A federal law enforcement official told Reuters that Santiago told agents at the Anchorage office in November that his mind was being controlled by a U. S. intelligence agency, which was ordering him to watch Islamic State videos.
Santiago served from 2007 to 2016 in the Puerto Rico National Guard and Alaska National Guard including a deployment to Iraq from 2010 to 2011, according to the Pentagon.
A private first class and combat engineer, he received half a dozen medals before being transferred to the inactive ready reserve in August last year.
An aunt said he came back from his deployment “a different person,” MSNBC reported.
LEGAL TO FLY WITH GUNS
Flying with firearms is routine and legal in the United States as long as the guns are kept in a locked, hard-sided container as checked baggage only, under TSA rules. Ammunition is prohibited in carry-on bags but is allowed in checked luggage.
The attack was the latest in a series of mass shootings that have plagued the United States in recent years, some inspired by militants with an extreme view of Islam, others carried out by loners or the mentally disturbed.
John Schlicher, who told MSNBC he saw the attack, said the shooter was “directly firing at us” while passengers waited for their bags. His wife gave first aid to a victim who had been shot in the head, and his mother-in-law used her sweater to tend to another victim but it turned out that person was already dead, he said.
Mark Lea, another eyewitness, told MSNBC, “He didn’t say anything; he was quiet the whole time.”
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is the second largest in South Florida, serving as an intercontinental gateway.
Nearly two months ago a former Southwest Airlines worker killed an employee of the company at Oklahoma City’s airport in what police called a premeditated act.
The deadliest mass shooting in modern U. S. history took place last June, when a gunman apparently inspired by Islamic State killed 49 people and wounded 53 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins, Letitia Stein, Jeffrey Dastin, Joseph Ax, Jonathan Allen, Gina Cherelus, Mark Hosenball and Laila Kearney; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)

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Rachel Maddow reports on the findings in the U. S. intelligence report on Russia that Vladimir Putin sought to undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election because he blames her for fomenting unrest in Russia after he rigged his own election.

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Without a word, the gunman moved through the baggage claim picking off travelers until his handgun ran out of ammunition, leaving five dead and eight wounded in Fort Lauderdale’s airport.
Panicked witnesses ran out of the terminal and spilled onto the tarmac, baggage in hand. Others hid in bathroom stalls or crouched behind cars or anything else they could find as police and paramedics rushed in Friday to help the wounded and establish whether there were any other gunmen.
Authorities said an Army veteran who complained that the government was controlling his mind drew a gun from his checked luggage on arrival and opened fire on fellow travelers.
Bruce Hugon, who had flown in from Indianapolis for a vacation, was at the baggage carousel when he heard four or five pops and saw everyone drop to the ground. He said a woman next to him tried to get up and was shot in the head.
“The guy must have been standing over me at one point. I could smell the gunpowder,” he said. “I thought I was about to feel a piercing pain or nothing at all because I would have been dead.”
The gunman was identified as 26-year-old Esteban Santiago of Anchorage, Alaska, who served in Iraq with the National Guard but was demoted and discharged last year for unsatisfactory performance. His brother said he had been receiving psychological treatment recently.
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that Santiago had walked into the FBI office in Anchorage in November to say that the U. S. government was controlling his mind and making him watch Islamic State videos.
Agents questioned an agitated and disjointed-sounding Santiago and then called police, who took him for a mental health evaluation, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
FBI agent George Piro, who is in charge of the Miami field office, confirmed that Santiago had come into the Anchorage office and said he clearly indicated at the time that he was not intent on hurting anyone.
Piro said authorities are looking at leads in several states and have not ruled out terrorism. “We’re looking at every angle, including the terrorism angle,” he said
Santiago , who is in federal custody, will face federal charges and is expected to appear in court Monday, Piro said.
It is legal for airline passengers to travel with guns and ammunition as long as the firearms are put in a checked bag — not a carry-on — and are unloaded and locked in a hard-sided container. Guns must be declared to the airline at check-in.
Santiago arrived in Fort Lauderdale after taking off from Anchorage aboard a Delta flight Thursday night, checking only one piece of luggage — his gun, said Jesse Davis, police chief at the Anchorage airport.
At Fort Lauderdale, “after he claimed his bag, he went into the bathroom and loaded the gun and started shooting. We don’t know why,” said Chip LaMarca, a Broward County commissioner who was briefed by investigators.
The gunman was taken into custody after throwing his empty weapon down and lying spread-eagle on the ground, one witness said.
“People started kind of screaming and trying to get out of any door they could or hide under the chairs,” the witness, Mark Lea, told MSNBC. “He just kind of continued coming in, just randomly shooting at people, no rhyme or reason to it.”
The Fort Lauderdale gunman said nothing as he “went up and down the carousels of the baggage claim, shooting through luggage to get at people that were hiding,” according to Lea. The killer went through about three magazines before running out of ammunition, Lea said.
The gunman was arrested unharmed, with no shots fired by law enforcement officers, and was being questioned by the FBI, Sheriff Scott Israel said.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said 30 to 40 people were injured — scrapes, bruises and broken bones — after the shooting.
The condition of the wounded was not disclosed. At least one of the victims was seen lying in a pool of blood with what appeared to be a head wound.
The airport was shut down, with incoming flights diverted and outgoing flights held on the ground. Airport Director Mark Gale said it will try to reopen at 5 a.m. Saturday but urged travelers to check with their individual airlines on flight status
The bloodshed is likely to raise questions of whether aviation safety officials need to change the rules.
The attack also exposed another weak point in airport security: While travelers have to take off their shoes, put their carry-on luggage through X-ray machines and pass through metal detectors to reach the gates, many other sections of airports, such as ticket counters and baggage claim areas, are more lightly secured and more vulnerable to attack.
“The fact is that wherever there are crowds, such as at our airports, we remain vulnerable to these types of attacks,” Nelson said.
President Barack Obama was briefed by his Homeland Security adviser, the White House said. President-elect Donald Trump said that it is a “disgraceful situation that’s happening in our country and throughout the world” and that it was too soon to say whether it was a terrorist attack.
Santiago ’s brother, Bryan, told the AP that his brother had been receiving psychological treatment in Alaska. He said Santiago ’s girlfriend alerted the family to the situation in recent months. Bryan Santiago said that he didn’t know what his brother was being treated for and that they never talked about it.
He said Esteban Santiago was born in New Jersey and moved to Puerto Rico when he was 2. He was sent to Iraq in 2010 and spent a year there with the 130th Engineer Battalion, according to Puerto Rico National Guard spokesman Maj. Paul Dahlen. He later joined the Alaska National Guard.
The Pentagon said Santiago had gone AWOL several times during his stint with the Alaska National Guard and was demoted — from specialist to private first class — and given a general discharge, which is lower than an honorable discharge.
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Associated Press writers Freida Frisaro and Adriana Gomez-Licon in Miami; Lolita C. Baldor and Eric Tucker in Washington; Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; David Koenig in Dallas; and Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.
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