FBI spokesman George Piro said the suspected assailant, 26-year-old Esteban Santiago, walked into an FBI office in Anchorage, Alaska, in November 2016 claiming voices in his head were telling him to join ISIS.
The suspect in the Fort Lauderdale Airport shooting was known to the FBI
The man authorities believe shot 13 people, five of them fatally, at Fort Lauderdale International Airport on Friday was known to the FBI prior to carrying out the massacre, an FBI official said during a news conference Friday night.
ISIS videos were apparently found on his computer, NBC's Pete Williams reported, citing federal officials.
Piro, the FBI spokesman, said Santiago was taken into custody by local police in Anchorage and sent to a medical facility for an evaluation.
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His aunt, who lives in New Jersey, told reporters that Santiago had started acting strangely when he returned from Iraq, and about a month ago "lost his mind."
"He said he saw things," his aunt, told reporters outside her home in Union City, New Jersey. She mentioned that he had just become a father in September.
used a gun he had checked into his luggage to carry out the massacre in the baggage claim area of Terminal 2.
Santiago is now in federal custody. He is expected to make his first court appearance on Monday.
"At this point it looks like he acted alone," Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said of the suspect. He noted that "it's too early to say either way" whether this was an act of terrorism.
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