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CNN Sunday Morning

INS Says LAX Shooter Almost Deported Six Years Ago

Aired July 07, 2002 - 07:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It turns out the Egyptian immigrant who killed two people at L.A.'s airport was nearly deported six years ago. An INS spokesperson says Hesham Mohamed Hadayet petitioned for permanent residency, was denied in 1996. Now it's not clear why he was rejected, but before he could be deported Hadayet won permanent residency through his wife who had received a valid visa.

Let's talk more about airport safety concern. Joining me now in Atlanta, our Mike Brooks, CNN law enforcement analyst. Good morning.

MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about Hadayet for a moment. What could have been some of the scenarios to why he was denied? Could they have had concerns about his behavior or ...

BROOKS: It could have been he was involved in some minor law enforcement issues, maybe a DUI, something of that nature that they would want to deport him for. But he's still here, so he was here legally. So I -- you know what exactly that was, the reason he was denied, could be some other family ties, some other family issues. There's a lot of different laws behind this deal that could have had him deported.

PHILLIPS: I understand we have some pictures just in that we were finally able to bring you from the situation that happened a few days ago. There they are -- these are, I guess, exclusive pictures that came down of the incident that went down -- they're amateur photos, I'm told.

Now he's not a terrorist, is he?

BROOKS: Well, that's what they're trying to determine whether he is or not. The Israelis say that he is. The United States, the FBI says right now it doesn't appear to be that he was. It could be a hate crime. It could have been a workplace violence incident where he might have had a disagreement because he had a limousine service with the folks at El Al. So they're still trying to determine to see also if he has any links, whatsoever, with any terrorist group.

Being an Egyptian, there's a number of different terrorist groups that come out of Egypt, but right now it looks like there's none.

PHILLIPS: All right, now there's going to be increases security across the country at all the airports right there at the ticket counters. It seems like our airports are becoming more and more like airports overseas.

BROOKS: It does.

PHILLIPS: Kind of like military stations.

BROOKS: Well, you know, before prior to September 11, you go to Amsterdam, you go to Italy, and you see people walking around and even England where they have the strictest gun laws in the world, and you see them with semi automatic weapons, and people would say oh that really scares me, but we kind of got used to that after September 11. We had 6,000 National Guardsmen put in our airports. And then in May they were replaced by local law enforcement.

You know the TSA says they're going to put uniformed folks, uniformed officers in all the airports by the end of the year. Does this mean that until the end of the year are we going to see National Guardsmen back in the airports? I think if they could say that it was a act of terrorism, you may see National Guardsmen back in the airports, but right now I don't know if that's going to happen or not.

PHILLIPS: Are we overreacting or is more security just not a bad thing right now?

BROOKS: Well, I don't think we're overreacting at all. A lot of people thought that on the Fourth because there were no crowds especially in Washington and New York, that we had overreacted and the people didn't come because of the -- because of security concerns. I think the problem there more than anything else was the weather. The heat was just unbelievable. I was in Washington, and it was very hot and very humid, and there were a lot of police there.

But if you make a hard target, it's less likely that the terrorists are going to come and attack you. You know you show a high security profile, it helps a lot. Now on the airport side of things, TSA was talking prior to this incident at LAX, they were talking about having a uniform division, if you will, that were going to be at all the airports to replace the local and state officers that are already there. And they're also going to have undercover plainclothes officers that will also be there to observe people while they're in the airport.

That was already under way. They said they are not changing any of their plans right now. They still have to go through a selection process that they're going through right now and also the training process. They'll go through training down at the Federal Law Enforcement Training center. So I think nothing really has changed as of -- just because of the incident at LAX, but and they're not going to step up the time of when they want to put them in either. So ...

PHILLIPS: And Fourth of July, no major incidents ...

BROOKS: No ...

PHILLIPS: ... safe ... BROOKS: ... you know, I think it's better. You know, people said, well, what about all the law enforcement? I think it's better to need them and not have -- you know to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.

PHILLIPS: All right, Mike Brooks, thanks so much.

BROOKS: You're welcome.

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