Icheoku says is simply surrendering enough reason for the Fort Lauderdale gunman to live after shooting up a baggage collection carousel area, killing five and wounding eight people? Did he live because he does not fit the right template and narrative of a possible terror suspect? Were he Arab or even black, would the policeman who first accosted or encountered him, have let him live or allowed him to be taken alive? What exactly founded the decision not to summarily waste him as should every terrorist and save the people the cost of putting him through a lengthy and lingering justice system. He did it; he was captured in the act, done; why spare him, one would ask?
Short of debriefing him and possibly unearth the extent of his possible ties to ISIS or any other terrorist group, there was no other real reason for actually sparing his sorry life. Why he surrendered and did not lodge one bullet inside his own brain is also beyond understanding or may be the coward he is was on the way and he could not find the courage to taste his own bitter pill which he unwittingly and freely dished out to others. Regardless, the question becomes how does anyone protect and guard against people like this Esteban Santiago, assuming he is a disciple or rather soldier of ISIS and acted out their script. Here is a man trained with the United States tax payer's money as a soldier. He does not fit the normal profile of a would be terrorist as he is not Arab; and he is neither the usual suspect, a black; but a Hispanic of Puerto Rico descent. He could have ordinarily in the course of his work as a member of the Alaskan National Guard have been dispatched with full military gear, weapons and ammo to patrol a facility or even an airport and then turn around and unleash a scaled-up terror from the carnage he committed at Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida.
It is simply a very daunting task for security agents to juggle all these possible scenarios, including worrying about such people as this Esteban Santiago, an enemy within the house with nothing about him to tip off agents or increase suspicion about him. A matter which becomes more complicated because there is no one cap fits all indicator or way of identifying these enemies within our midst. It is quite unfortunate that innocent travelers were so summarily dispatched to the world beyond and it is not an airplane accident, but people who were simply waiting to collect up their luggage following a safe landing from a long Alaskan flight to Florida. That the gunman waited or rather flew all the way across country from Alaska to Florida to commit his heinous crime is also another issue worth investigating; afterall if he could do it in Fort Lauderdale, why not in Fairbanks or Juneau? Why travel all the way to Fort Lauderdale to do what he could have also done at Alaska or did he think committing the crime in Florida would give him more publicity. Anyway, Icheoku hopes that his being captured alive would get to the root of the matter, otherwise killing him upon sight inside the airport would have been the most appropriate and efficient response as such people do not belong in a civilized society. Indeed very pitiful and painful. May the souls of the deceased rest in peace while speedy recovery to the wounded.
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