Shooting at Phoenix airport on Christmas leaves three injured

Police are investigating a Christmas shooting at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport that left three people shot and wounded and another person stabbed. The agents indicated that it appeared to be a family dispute.

Phoenix police said the shooting occurred around 9:45 p.m. at an airport restaurant that is outside the security checkpoints at Terminal 4.

A woman and two men were shot, leaving the woman with injuries that police described as serious. The two men are in stable condition and are expected to survive, police said in a statement. The man hospitalized with at least one stab wound was in stable condition.

The group of people knew each other and got into a physical fight that led to one of them pulling out a gun, police said.

“I believe this was a family dispute that escalated,” Sergeant Mayra Reeson of Phoenix police told reporters.

After the shooting, a man and a girl were detained in a nearby airport parking lot. Police did not immediately release information about possible charges. They were still investigating why the group was at the airport and whether they were traveling or were there for some other reason.

The shooting led to the temporary closure of a security checkpoint in Terminal A, the closure of some restaurants and a pause in service at the terminal’s PHX Sky Train station.

“Of course this was scary, it was Christmas night, everyone was trying to get home,” Reeson said.

In what Reeson described as a “completely unrelated” incident after the shooting and stabbing, a man arrived at the airport with a gun Wednesday night.

“This man received a text message that there was an active shooter in Sky Harbor,” Reeson said.

That man then got into an altercation with a police officer and was arrested inside the airport. Reeson said he would be taken to jail. Information about his charges was not immediately available.

One of the largest commercial airports in the United States, Sky Harbor is a hub for American Airlines and a connecting point for Southwest and Frontier passengers.

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