U.S. government failed airport shooting suspect, brother says
PENUELAS, Puerto Rico — The brother of a man accused of killing five people at a Florida airport questioned Saturday why his brother was allowed to keep his gun after U.S. authorities knew he’d become increasingly paranoid and was hearing voices.
Esteban Santiago, 26, had trouble controlling his anger after serving in Iraq, and told his brother that he felt he was being chased and controlled by the CIA through secret online messages. When he told agents at an FBI field office his paranoid thoughts in November, he was evaluated for four days, then released without any follow-up medication or therapy.
“The FBI failed there,” Bryan Santiago told The Associated Press.
Speaking in Spanish outside his family’s house in Penuelas, the brother said: “The federal government already knew about this for months, they had been evaluating him for a while, but they didn’t do anything.”
Authorities in Alaska on Saturday defended their interactions with Santiago. FBI Special Agent in Charge Marlin Ritzman told a news conference that Santiago broke no laws when he walked into the Anchorage FBI office “making disjointed comments about mind control.” He characterized Santiago as a “walk-in complaint,” which he said offices around the country receive daily.
Anchorage police were called to the office by the agency, told Santiago he was having “terroristic thoughts” and believed he was being influenced by the so-called Islamic State, and was taken to a mental health facility, city police chief Chris Tolley said. Santiago had left a gun and his newborn child in his vehicle when he went to the FBI office. Police held the gun until Santiago was released and contacted him about picking up the weapon, which he did on Dec. 8, Tolley said.
U.S. Attorney for Alaska Karen Loeffler said that it doesn’t appear to her that Santiago would have been prohibited from having access to a gun. In recent years, Esteban Santiago — a new dad — had been living in Anchorage. But there were signs of trouble.
He was charged in a domestic violence case in January 2016, damaging a door when he forced his way into a bathroom at his girlfriend’s Anchorage home. The woman told officers he yelled at her to leave, choked her and smacked her on the side of the head, according to charging documents.
A month later, municipal prosecutors said he violated the conditions of his release when officers found him at her home during a routine check.