Gunman opens fire at Los Angeles airport, killing security agent By Dan Whitcomb and Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A lone gunman stormed into a packed terminal at the Los Angeles International Airport and opened fire with an assault weapon on Friday, killing an unarmed federal security agent before he was shot and captured, authorities said. At least one airport security agent was wounded by gunfire, in addition to the one who was shot and killed, and a number of other people were hurt in the pandemonium. "An individual came into Terminal 3 of this airport, pulled an assault rifle out of a bag and began to open fire in the terminal," Patrick Gannon, chief of the Los Angeles Airport Police, said at a news conference. Gannon said the gunman, a U.S. citizen who appeared to be acting alone, pushed through the screening gates and ran more than 100 yards into the airport, where law enforcement officers caught up with him in a food court, shot him at least once and took him into custody. The slain agent, 39-year-old Gerardo Hernandez, was the first from the Transportation Security Administration to die in the line of duty. The TSA runs passenger screenings in U.S. airports. But the shooting was not the first such incident at the airport. At the airport, 47-year-old traveler Lauren Stephens said she had just put her luggage on the scale at the ticket counter at Terminal 3 on Friday when she heard a series of gunshots. Everybody pancaked down on the ground," Stephens said. I don't know if that was just because he was turning the gun around," she said. Jose Mares, who was catching a flight back to his home in Oklahoma with his wife, told Reuters he was about 20 to 30 yards away from a man with a gun on the second level of Terminal 3 when the man opened fire. Mares, 31, said he used his own body to shield his wife from harm. The FBI's Bowdich said the gunman shot at least two TSA employees, one fatally. A number of other people were injured while fleeing the scene. Three men hurt at the airport were taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where one was in critical condition and two others were in fair condition, according to hospital spokesman Mark Wheeler. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said that had police not moved to stop the gunman as quickly as they did, the carnage could have been much worse. The FBI said it would probe the shooting itself as well as the gunman's background, and a U.S. official who asked not to be identified said separately that federal investigators were trying to determine if the gunman had been targeting TSA agents. "Our goal is to do a true scrub on the individual to find out what was the tipping point for this person," the FBI's Bowdich said. A witness to the shooting, Leon Saryan, told CNN that the same man he had just seen shoot a TSA officer "calmly" walked toward him and asked, "TSA?" "I just shook my head, and he kept going," Saryan said. A photo of the suspect released by the FBI showed a young man with short, close-cropped dark hair and sideburns, and an FBI spokeswoman said agents armed with a search warrant were searching Ciancia's home in Los Angeles. In New Jersey, where the suspected shooter's father lives, police and FBI agents descended on his family's home in Pennsville Township. Pennsville Police Chief Allen Cummings said he had been contacted by Ciancia's father before the shooting, prompted by a worrisome text message from the young man to his brother. "I came down here along with my lieutenant and we made a phone call to LAPD and asked that they do a well-being check on the son in Los Angeles, and they called me back and said he was not at home at the time," Cummings told Reuters. He declined to elaborate on the nature of the text message but said family members told investigators they had no indication that Ciancia, who moved to California about 18 months ago, was troubled. Obviously they're upset. It's a shock to them. It's a shock to the community," Cummings said. President Barack Obama was briefed on the incident and White House officials are in touch with law enforcement officials on the ground, spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. Reporting by Lisa Richwine, Tim Reid, Nichola Groom, Alex Dobuzinskis, Dana Feldman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento; Eric Johnson in Seattle; Tim Gaynor in Phoenix; Dave Warner in Pennsville, New Jersey; and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Cynthia Johnston and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Gunna Dickson and Lisa Shumaker