Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday he was not surprised Los Angeles International Airport ranked near the top of a list released Thursday of U.S. airfields plagued by perimeter breaches, but he will ask for a briefing on efforts being taken to keep the facility secure.
“We’ve been hardening the targets at LAX for quite some time, actually since the shooting … two Novembers ago,” Garcetti said during an appearance on KNX Newsradio. “This is something too that I want to make sure that I get briefed on and make sure that LAX is secure as we possibly can make it.”
The mayor was responding to an Associated Press story that found 268 of cases of intruders hopping perimeter fences or even crashing cars through gates at U.S. airports since 2004, with LAX having the third-highest number of cases. The figure did not include cases at airports in New York or Boston, where officials declined to release the statistics.
Garcetti noted that suspects were caught in all 24 breaches at LAX.
“It doesn’t surprise me that we’re in the top three given that we’re the second-busiest airport in the United States, but that’s disturbing to see,” the mayor told KNX. “All it takes is one person who can get through and do something. Obviously, they are saying in this analysis they weren’t terrorists trying to do this, but anybody can cause havoc — one person on the runway, somebody wanting to commit suicide, somebody wanting to cause some trouble can have huge consequences.”
Garcetti said a Perimeter Intrusion Detection System is being installed at LAX and should be completed in the next year. The system includes electronic sensors designed to detect potential intruders before they can get over fences.
The AP report noted that one man, identified as Christopher McGrath, breached LAX security eight times between April 2012 and March 2013. He was eventually sent by a federal judge to a medical facility in Missouri.
“Look, it’s a very busy airport,” Garcetti said on KNX. “There’s no way you can track every face that comes in, but there should be a way for law enforcement to follow up with folks who are repeat offenders after a second time. We should be tracing these folks and making sure they don’t come back.”
— City News Service