ATLANTA — A Good Samaritan is being credited with stopping a threat at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and now he is explaining how he did it.
Mark Thomas said he was standing in line at the main security checkpoint Oct. 30 when he heard a TSA agent yell, “Breach!” and “Everybody freeze!”
He said he looked up and saw a man running full speed past two TSA agents toward the X-ray machines.
“I just grabbed him, picked him up, and slammed him,” Thomas told Channel 2’s Courtney Francisco.
Thomas said he held the man down and asked him what he planned to do next.
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“He just kept saying ‘I’m OK. I’m OK. Just let me up. Just let me up,’” Thomas said.
Police said that man was Leon Fabian.
He’s one of two men charged with threatening safety at the airport last month.
On Oct. 20, prosecutors said Billy Joe Cagle plotted a mass shooting at the airport. Cagle pleaded not guilty in federal court on Friday.
“We’re continually treating this case as a medical issue and not an issue of malice criminal behavior,” Cagle’s attorney, Preston Haliburton, said.
The next step in Cagle’s case is a pre-trial hearing. No date is set for that at this time.
Fabian’s next court date is set for Dec. 1.
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