A man who appeared to be trying to kill himself at a Los Angeles International Airport cargo terminal on Monday was chased in his car by police into the central terminal area and taken into custody.
A witness saw a car in a parking area of the Japan Cargo building, 6041 Imperial Highway, about 9 a.m. with a garden hose coming out of the exhaust pipe and leading to the rear passenger window, explained Los Angeles Airport Police Sgt. Belinda Joseph.
“When airport police arrived on scene, the victim was seen writing what appeared to be a suicide note,” she said.
The man initially refused to respond to the officers, and then drove off, prompting a short vehicle pursuit, Joseph said.
Officers stopped the man’s car on the upper level roadway at Terminal 2, and persuaded him to cooperate with them. The unidentified man was then taken to a hospital for observation and treatment, she said.
Amid fears there was a man with a gun in the terminal, some passengers who had been screened “self-evacuated” themselves onto the airfield, Joseph told City News Service.
Those passengers, she continued, remained under constant observation by airport police and were eventually moved back into a screened waiting area.
All screening stations and other Terminal 2 services were operating normally as of 11 a.m., she said.
