LOS ANGELES – Federal prosecutors announced today that they plan to seek the death penalty against the alleg
ed shooter who killed a TSA officer at Los Angeles International Airport and wounded others, according to a court document filed Friday in U.S. District Court.
Paul Anthony Ciancia, 24, was charged with 11 federal counts in connection with the Nov. 1, 2013 attack, when authorities allege he opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle in the airport’s busy Terminal 3.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges in December 2013.
The alleged shooting at the airport resulted in the death of Transportation Security Administration Officer Gerardo I. Hernandez and three other people wounded.
Hernandez, 39, was the first TSA employee killed in the line of duty since the agency was formed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The notice to seek the death penalty petition to the court, states that Ciancia intended to kill Hernandez and “engaged in an act of violence, knowing that the act created a grave risk of death to a person.”
Federal prosecutors allege that Ciancia also engage in “reckless disregard for human life,” maintaining that he terrorized many airline passenger causing them to fear for their lives, officials said.
Prosecutors declined to comment on the case.
Ciancia, a New Jersey native living in Los Angeles, was shot in the head and leg during a gun battle with airport police. He is being jailed at the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles.