A 37-year-old woman fired multiple shots, apparently into the ceiling, inside Dallas’ Love Field airport Monday before an officer shot and wounded her, authorities said.
The woman was dropped off at the airport around 11 am, entered near the ticket counters and went into the bathroom, Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said at a news conference. She came out wearing a hoodie or some other clothing she hadn’t arrived in, pulled out a gun and fired several shots, apparently into the ceiling, he said.
“At this point, we don’t know exactly where the individual was pointing,” Garcia said.
An officer who was nearby shot the woman in her “lower extremities,” wounding her and allowing her to be taken into custody, Garcia said. She was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
“No other individuals were injured in this event other than the suspect,” Garcia said.
Police later identified the woman as Portia Odufuwa, 37, and did not speculate on her motive.
“We wanted to make sure our community knew that this is not an active situation,” the chief said.
Karen Warner told The Dallas Morning News She was checking in for her flight when she heard a loud argument about 20 feet (6 meters) behind her, followed by a gunshot. Then she started running.
“I heard about 10 more shots as I was running away,” said Warner, who couldn’t make out what the argument was about.
Love Field, which is one of two major airports in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, suspended airport operations after the shooting but said around 3:45 p.m. that they had resumed. The Federal Aviation Administration halted flights for a couple of hours while police investigated, but flights were cleared to resume in mid-afternoon.
A spokesman for southwest Airlines, which uses Love Field as its main airport, said the airline canceled most of its flights that were scheduled to depart or arrive at Love Field before 6 pm CDT. Southwest canceled 85 flights at Love Field on Monday, according to flight tracking website Flight Aware.
The shooting was not the first violent incident at the airport.
In 2016, a police officer shot and injured a man outside Love Field after police said he advanced on the officer with large lawn stones in his hands after hitting his ex-girlfriend’s car with a traffic cone and stones when she dropped him off at the airport.
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