Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. 

By Britt Nelson

Why did the alleged shooter at the Fort Lauderdale airport put down his gun, drop to the floor and give up to police unharmed? Did he simply run out of bullets or is there a bigger plan? This mass shooter didn’t shoot himself nor was he shot dead by police after killing five and wounding six late-Friday morning in the unsecure baggage pickup area.

This shooting shut down a major international airport leaving thousands of travelers stranded and disrupting thousands of others on flights diverted to other airports. Mayhem and madness – what is the cause?

Fort Lauderdale can now be added to the growing list of mass shootings that have seared the consciousness of the American people – Columbine, Fort Hood, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Orlando, Dallas, Charleston, and on and on. With the way things are now, guns are so out of control in America they never will be in control. This situation is 100 percent political. President-elect Donald Trump, the U.S. Congress and the American people must find a way out of this darkness, or else we can all say goodbye to the American way of life.

Investigators said Sunday that Esteban Santiago, 26, of Anchorage, Alaska, a U.S. Army veteran who served on combat duty in Iraq, has confessed to the shootings, according to the Sun-Sentinel newspaper of Fort Lauderdale.

But this domestic tragedy may have been avoided months ago in Anchorage when Santiago walked into an FBI office and spoke with agents about his hearing radical Islamic messages in his head and told them he was being forced to watch ISIS videos. In Santiago’s vehicle, at the FBI office, a 9-mm handgun was found and seized in November 2016, but later returned to him in December following a mental-health exam. The FBI did not place Santiago on any no-fly list, and on Jan. 6 he boarded an airplane, with a legally-checked pistol with ammunition, and headed to Fort Lauderdale. 

Why Fort Lauderdale to shoot up an airport and kill as many people as he could? No one seems to know why Santiago bought a one-way ticket to the Sunshine State from Alaska. Perhaps the mentally ill shooter doesn’t even know himself. Could it be that international airport is the closest to President-elect Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate in what many are calling the new Florida White House? This scenario makes as much sense as anything else. 

Circumstantial evidence discovered so far by investigators show pictures of Santiago wearing Islamic clothing as seen on TV news reports. At his arrest, Santiago had a full beard in line with radical Islamists. According to the Sun-Sentinel, police have not ruled out terrorism — domestic or with foreign involvement.

When Santiago walked into that FBI office and went on record telling them of weird thoughts involving radical Islam perhaps he knew they could do nothing to him. It’s not against the law to be nuts, but they did take his handgun for a short time until, by law, the FBI had to return it to him. He had committed no crimes in Anchorage. Maybe a closer look needs to be given to our mental health services especially to veterans and others who have suffered trauma.

Now Santiago is being charged federally with creating terror at an airport resulting in death plus multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder, plus weapons charges. More than likely Santiago will become a death-penalty case that will take years to resolve and carry a large tax-aper price-tag. Even though he has apparently confessed, his confession may well be thrown out by the courts and replaced with a not-guilty plea with court-appointed defense lawyers representing him throughout a costly legal process.

Back in November the FBI should have been legally able to have placed Santiago on a no-fly list, kept his gun indefinitely, preventing him from buying another legal gun, and perhaps placed him under arrest for being a potential threat to others, but they can’t. All he did was run his mouth, but he was on the FBI’s radar and should have been stopped.

This is a time for prayer, and for greater controls to prevent future tragedies.

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.