Man shot by security at New Orleans international airport after machete attack

A 63-year-old man was shot at a security checkpoint in the New Orleans inteational airport after he cut a guard with a machete and sprayed two others with wasp spray.

Richard White entered the airport and went through the TSA pre-check line where boarding passes are checked when he was confronted by one of the guards, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand told a news conference outside the airport.

White responded by spraying the guard with wasp spray, then struck a female officer with a machete, cutting her right arm, Normand said.

White sprayed the male officer again before a third officer shot him, striking him in the left chest, left thigh and left facial area, the sheriff said.

Normand said White was transferred to an area hospital but was “unresponsive.”

 

'Attacker': Witnesses said that this man drew a machete and attacked a TSA employee in New Orleans Friday night

 

Machete-wielder? This photograph from social media showed a man on the floor near a machete after the shooting at Louis Armstrong Inteational Airport, New Orleans

A bystander received a graze wound to the arm during the scramble to get out of the area and a few people received minor cuts from fuiture, the sheriff said.

There was no information at this time of a connection between White and the airport, he said. “We don’t know if he was travelling. We’re still piecing together witness interviews.”