San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is enjoying a welcome quiet spell after a three-pronged burst of mayhem involving a stabbing, a bomb threat and a wild chopping attack by a man wielding a half-metre-long machete.
The three incidents are unrelated, as far as is known.
A stabbing in the airport’s Terminal 3 baggage claim area was the most recent outrage. Police arrested a suspect after someone knifed an airport employee working for the airport’s document identification system.
A few days earlier, police arrested a man for allegedly lodging a false bomb threat, causing the airport’s international terminal to be evacuated, with hundreds of travellers inconvenienced.
Investigators at the airport found a suspicious package they considered “possibly incendiary,” police reported.
Air travel in today’s environment is challenging enough without that.
Even worse, last month a man went berserk at the airport, running amok while brandishing a machete over half a metre long, chopping three people before dropping a stack of papers with his writings.
Prosecutors said the man appeared to be suffering mental issues. He was whisked away for psychiatric evaluation before being transferred to jail.
In gentler news, San Francisco International Airport announced that its Harvey Milk Terminal 1 has won the International Partnering Institute’s 2022 Partnered Project of the Year award.
Harvey Milk Terminal 1 has won several environmental design accolades in recent years. The terminal is named after Harvey Milk, a popular local politician in San Francisco who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California.
Milk was fatally gunned down in 1978 by a disgruntled former city supervisor who assassinated the city’s mayor, George Moscone, in the same attack.
Written by Peter Needham
