The father of the young man suspected of carrying out a fatal shooting at Los Angeles International Airport called his local police chief around the time of the shooting to report that his son had sent a suicidal text message to a sibling and he needed to find him, a New Jersey police chief said.

A man pulled a semi-automatic rifle from a bag and shot his way past a checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport yesterday, killing a security officer and wounding two other people in an attack that sent terrified travellers running for cover and disrupted US flights from coast to coast, authorities said.

A gun in a US student’s backpack went off when he dropped the bag, wounding two students at his high school, police said.

A 15-year-old girl was fighting for her life today after she and a fellow pupil were shot when a gun in a dropped backpack went off.

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