A man showed up at the Atlanta airport on Monday, looking to shoot up the terminal. He pulled up curbside in a Chevy flatbed pickup. But members of his family alerted the police of his plan – which he was livestreaming – and within 14 minutes he was apprehended.
Around 9:30 a.m. airport cameras show his truck pulling up. The driver, 49-year old Billy Joe Cagle, went inside door S1 and started checking out the TSA checkpoint area.
Ten minutes later family members called the police, telling them he was headed to the airport to “shoot it up” and had a rifle. Cartersville police forwarded the warning to Atlanta Police, along with Cagle’s photo which was pushed out to the phones of officers at the airport. At 9:42 a.m. police located Cagle near the TSA checkpoint.
At 9:54 a.m. — fourteen minutes after the tip – police arrested him without shots fired. They found a loaded ‘AR‑15‑style’ rifle in his truck at curbside, with one bullet in the chamber and 26 in the magazine.
Atlanta police chief Darin Schierbaum shared surveillance and body‑cam footage of the encounter by early afternoon in a press conference. Mayor Andre Dickens says “27 or more lives could have been lost today.” In this case, gun control didn’t work – Cagle is already a convicted felon, and shouldn’t have had the rifle under current law.
- Time from tip to arrest was ~14 minutes (9:40 to 9:54).
- Cagle spent about 23 minutes in the landside area of the terminal before arrest (9:31 to 9:54).
Police bodycam footage shows officer approaching Cagle after identifying the man matching the family‑supplied photo near the TSA checkpoint. They engage him verbally, then take him to the ground and handcuff him. He didn’t have his firearm in his possession at that time.
Online commenters offer,
“The toddler in him kicked in” (suspect’s scream)
“That fake-ass fall. He sounded like a toddler who wants attention.”
“His water broke at 1:27.”
“I’m surprised police didn’t notice that truck sitting outside unattended… outside police are ALWAYS not paying attention, standing around on their cell phones!”
He’s been charged with making terroristic threats, criminal attempt to commit aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Landside risks have been significant since TSA checkpoints began attempting to secure airside areas. We’ve seen attacks at several airports from Istanbul, to Brussels, to LAX. Bottlenecks at security checkpoints create even greater risk. Here we fortunately had an unusual case of “see something, say something” – only it was the man’s family that saw something.
These trumptards are the biggest wussies on earth
Are we doing ‘tots and pears’ or can we finally discuss ‘gun control’? Knives and mere pistols cannot kill that many people that fast. Fellas, let’s do universal background checks, assault weapons ban. Common sense regulation. Enough of this horror.
Curbside police are about as useful as police at highway construction areas they are more concerned about their FarmVille then doing what we as taxpayers pay them to do
@1990: We already have background checks. This gun was clearly provided by a friend or relative or was stolen (as typical for gangbangers and other urban terrorists – the same people that liberal government entities release back onto the streets.
In this case, a person could do far more damage with a concealed SA pistol, rather than a rifle, if that was their intent. Rifle is hard to conceal – that is why it was reportedly still in the truck. There is nothing to indicate the AR-15 was converted to automatic (it would not be an AR-15 if it was).
@Mark — So, your plan is… do nothing about the guns, and just blame brown people (nice thinly-veiled there with ‘gangbangers’ and ‘urban’). Yeah, that’s not helpful or good enough.
@1990.
Background checks are ineffective unless the threshold is a bad temper or reports of a weird personality.
If background checks are so good, then Iran would be allowed to have nuclear weapons and just background check their leader to make sure he has no criminal convictions.
@1990 – Since he didn’t lawfully purchase this gun, and wasn’t lawfully in possession of it, what do you suggest? What type of background check or ban would have prevented him from getting this gun? I am not aware of illegal gun sellers that would abide by these types of checks and bans.
@derek — Wild straw-men you got there. And, a whataboutism on Iran. How many more disingenuous logical fallacies can one possibly add…
Friends, as Australia learned after Port Arthur, and the UK after Dunblane, both in the 90s, we can and should do more in the USA about the guns… Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and all before and since shoulda been the wakeup call, but money-over-people, every-time in this country it seems.
And if you’re now about to deflect/pivot to the ‘mental health’ crisis, then you gotta actually fund, not just talk, about providing that care. C’mon…
Lest we forget… The Mulford Act, a 1967 California bill that prohibited public carrying of loaded firearms without a permit. Signed into law by governor of California Ronald Reagan, the bill was crafted with the goal of disarming members of the Black Panther Party. So, the only time we, Americans, seem to care about guns is when the folks who have them are… Bueller? Bueller?