Police sources have confirmed that three people, including one police officer, were stabbed with a knife at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s (ATL) south terminal this afternoon.
It seems the assailant was a woman, whose name has not been released, whom police said is homeless and known to frequent the airport. At around 4:45 p.m., she started by stabbing a man while outside of a security checkpoint near the west crossover, at which point the airport police were called. The woman then headed into the south terminal.
"So, when we did encounter her, there had already been that stabbing that occurred,"said Atlanta Police Sgt. John Chafee told the news team at Fox 5. When law enforcement officers arrived on the scene, they surrounded the aggressor and attempted to take her into custody. Police first tried to calm her with their words and to persuade her to drop the knife she held.
"There’s a little bit of moment that happened there," said Sgt. Chafee. Instead of surrendering, the perpetrator proceeded to lunge at another woman and an airport police lieutenant, stabbing them both.
At that point, an officer was able to physically tackle and arrest the armed woman, she was taken into police custody and transferred to the airport precinct. The attacker herself was evidently not injured in the struggle.
The APD lieutenant was reportedly punctured in the thigh, where the blade struck an artery, while the third victim—airport ticket clerk—was reportedly only nicked by the knife. All three were rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital for treatment of their wounds.
The offender’s motivation remains a mystery. "Charges are going to be filed at some point," said Sgt. Chafee, which will be determined only once investigators have had sufficient to piece together what exactly happened.
Sgt. Chafee told reporters that the security checkpoint was not shut down because of the incident. "The areas where the crime scenes are blocked off, but there’s multiple different entrances that can be used at the airport," he said.
A video posted to social media by one of the passengers who was in the terminal at the time shows that people in line at the security gate were kneeling down, per police instruction, until the threat passed. They can be heard clapping after the all-clear is finally given.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reportedly indicated that no delays had been caused by the incident, but said that individual flights could be impacted. Atlanta Airport posted an all-clear notice to its official X (formerly Twitter) account about 40 minutes after the first stabbing occurred. “Impacts to operations are minimal,” it reads, “There is no threat to the public.”
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