The suspect in Friday’s armed attack at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) could face the death penalty for shooting dead a Transportation Security Administration officer and wounding five other people. Paul Ciancia is charged with murdering a federal officer and committing violence at an international airport. LAX police head Patrick Gannon described the attack.

Patrick Gannon: “9:20 this morning, an individual came into Terminal 3 of this airport, pulled a assault rifle out of a bag and began to open fire in the terminal. He proceeded up into the screening area, where TSA screeners are, and continued shooting and went past the screeners back into the airport itself. Personnel officers from airport police, Los Angeles Airport Police, responded immediately to the calls. They tracked the individual through the airport and engaged him in gunfire in Terminal 3 and were able to successfully take him into custody.”

The slain victim, Gerardo Hernandez, was the first TSA agent to die in the line of duty since the agency’s creation following the 9/11 attacks. He was a married father of two who had emigrated from El Salvador as a teenager. Citing a law enforcement source, the Southern Poverty Law Center says the gunman, Paul Ciancia, was carrying a note making racist, homophobic and sexist slurs about government officials and describing the TSA in conspiratorial terms. Ciancia remains in critical condition and unresponsive to police questioning.