This week marks the anniversary of San Antonio that barely avoided mass shootings when an gunman opened fire at San Antonio International Airport.
The gunman, 46-year-old Joe Gomez, was driving the wrong way on the lower-level road that serves the passenger terminals around 2:30 p.m. on April 15, 2021, according to the report at the time. San Antonio Park police officer John Maine was standing in the middle of the road to confront the driver near Terminal B, but the man got out of the car and started firing at people at the terminal.
Passengers inside the airport were startled by gunfire, running frantically to the shelter.
Doug Rosini, 49 at the time, was waiting for the flight at 3:55 p.m. that day; He was on a business trip. He heard what he thought sounded like a “run over” as he passed restaurants at the airport, and then heard someone say run away because there were shots.
He quickly began looking for exits among several passengers who he said were pushing and shoving in their efforts to reach a safe haven.
“The only thing that went through my mind was the thought of going back to my family,” Rosini said at the time.
Local advertising and marketing director Bob Wills was crossing a security line when he saw people running and heard an agent from the Transportation Security Administration shout “Active shooter, active shooter!”
“They put us quickly and peacefully in a secure hallway and brought us to a lower level,” Wills said last year.
While people were fleeing, Maine shot Gomez, police said. Gomez then shot himself.
“The officer saved many lives. What we had there was the beginning of an active shooting situation,” then-Police Chief William McManus said. “We are very lucky.”
Maine, 41 at the time, worked with park police for 11 years and worked overtime on the day of the shooting.
No one else was shot, and only a few people inside the airport were injured in the chaos. McManus said one person was injured by shrapnel and treated on the spot while someone else who fell while running and injured his ankle was taken to hospital.
“We just know it was pretty scary,” Rosini said. “Fortunately, the TSA people have done a good job of leading people to where they need to be and making sure the panic is minimal, as much as you can.”
Gomez was taken to the university hospital, according to police, where he was pronounced dead. Although they originally thought the officer killed the shooter, Baxer County Medical Examiner’s Office said the man died of a self-inflicted wound and that the wounds from the responding officer are not fatal.
McManus said Gomez matched the description of a man earlier that morning who fired a gun from the upper aisle of Loop Interchange 1604-US 281. The commander also said the police department had treated the man in the past, noting police believe there were “some mental problems”.
The army soldier had a criminal record, according to past reports in court records.
In 1999 he was arrested for attempting to evade police, but the charge was later dropped. In 2007 he was arrested on charges of possession of marijuana which sent him to jail for 20 days. In 2010, he was arrested on a DWI charge that was dismissed, but six months later he was arrested again on a DWI charge and eventually put on probation for a year.
An indictment was filed against Gomez for possession of between 4 and 400 grams of amphetamine in 2011, but the charge was dropped due to lack of evidence.
Police seized Gomez’s shotgun, three handguns and two assault rifles after he was arrested in 2014 on suspicion of possessing marijuana weighing between 5 and 50 pounds. A year later – after Gomez pleaded not guilty to a reduced charge of possession of 4 ounces to 5 pounds of marijuana and sentenced to two years of community supervision – a judge signed an order to release his weapons, including a caliber pistol.45.
Gomez was released from community supervision in early May 2016 because he showed “progress and compliance.”
Gomez was armed with a 0.45 pistol and a box full of ammunition on the day of the shooting last year.
In June, the police department released security camera footage of the shooting at the airport. Although Maine had a camera worn on his body, he did not turn it on.
Police blurred part of the video when Gomez knelt down and shot himself.
megan.rodriguez@express-news.net