Misinformation on social media prompted LAX active shooter panic, officials say

The rampant spread of misinformation on social media was largely to blame for the panic that enveloped Los Angeles International Airportfollowing unfounded reports of an active shooter Sunday night, and officials say there’s not much police could have done to stop it.

The chaos began about 9 p.m. after a man thought he heard gunfire coming from Terminal 8 at LAX, Los Angeles Airport Police Information Officer Rob Pedregon said. Once reports of gunfire made it onto Twitter and other social media sites, inaccurate information spread unchecked, allowing the situation to snowball, he said.

The initial report of gunshots came in at about 8:45 p.m., and some of the earliest tweets about a possible active shooter surfaced about 15 minutes later. Over the next several minutes, various accounts of where the gunfire was coming from made their way onto Twitter and ended up being widely shared, contributing to the panic throughout the airport.

‘DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD’

Karen North, director of the digital social media program at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said the LAX incident is an example of how social media is “a double-edged sword.”

“It has the phenomenal advantage of the fact that it can get real-time information to a huge array of people almost immediately,” said North, a professor of social media. “But it has the disadvantage that information is not vetted or verified.”

One of the compounding issues Sunday night were cases of people calling 911 to report incidents second-hand from what they had seen on social media, Pedregon said. That leaves police in a difficult situation because officers can’t ignore a call that comes in, even if it’s based on inaccurate information garnered from a tweet.

“We count on social media to provide us with so much information these days,” he said. “There’s so many people that gather their news from social media and Facebook and Twitter. We can’t discount calls for service.”

That phenomenon led to accounts of shots heard in areas other than Terminal 8, where police responded initially.

“Unfortunately, there was some sort of panic and hysteria on the part of … passengers,” Pedregon said.

What could help prevent a similar situation in the future? Pedregon said it’s important to educate people not to share incorrect information and, more importantly, not to call 911 based on reports they’ve seen on social media.

Before social media became so ubiquitous, people who saw something suspicious would pick up an emergency telephone to alert officials and police would go to the terminal and decide whether to shut it down, North said.

“People wouldn’t know about it until the police came in and controlled the situation,” she said.

North did not have advice on what the public should do in situations like the one at LAX. There’s a balance, she said.

‘DAMNED IF YOU DO …’

Pedregon, who runs the LAX Police Department Twitter account, echoed that sentiment. Even using official accounts to counter misinformation comes with its own set of risks, he said. If he were to send out the most up-to-date information the department had at the time, he would have run the risk of adding to the chaos by lending credence to whatever rumors were circulating on social media.

“It’s always good to counteract bad information with good information. The only issue with that … (is) you don’t want to stir up hysteria by tweeting out information about a (shooter),” Pedregon said.

In the end, he said, it’s a case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” when it comes to releasing information about an incident on social media.

“If I were to put something out without having all the information, I just feel like I would have done more harm than good,” he said.

Sunday’s events came just a week after a similar situation developed at New York’s JFK airport. Like at LAX, reports of an active shooter led to the evacuation of terminals and widespread panic but turned out to be unfounded.

LAX PANIC

The first 911 call turned out to be based on loud noises a traveler heard near Terminal 8. After initial reports of a possible active shooter, police eventually confirmed no one had a weapon, no gunshots were fired and no one was hurt.

But by then, panic had set in among travelers. Photos and videos uploaded to social media show groups of people rushing toward the doors and out of the terminals. Others showed people huddled on the ground as police with handguns and rifles walked past. Some passengers queued up at gates rushed through emergency doors onto the tarmac, prompting the closure of a south runway.

Police are still investigating what might have caused the noises that prompted the man to call police, but investigators believe he honestly thought a gun had gone off, Pedregon said.

Ground traffic was snarled throughout Sunday night and remained heavy Monday morning. And flights across the country were affected by the LAX problems into Monday.

Twenty-seven flights were diverted to other airports Sunday, although most eventually made their way back to LAX, said LAX spokeswoman Nancy Castles. About 280 other flights were delayed and another two were canceled entirely, Castles said.

Emergency alerts were issued to residents within 5 miles of the airport Sunday night, but the earliest was sent shortly after 10:05 p.m., more than an hour after the initial call and police response. A subsequent emergency alert issued at 11:24 p.m. said airport police had issued an all-clear and that airport operations were returning to normal.

A separate incident involving a man dressed as the masked character Zorro added to the confusion Sunday night.

Airport police received a call at about 8:40 p.m. about the man, who was wearing a costume complete with mask, cape and plastic sword outside Terminal 7. While officers responded to that call, they received the report of shots coming from Terminal 8.

A video uploaded to Twitter showed the masked man detained by police, but he was not arrested, Pedregon said.