Florida airport shooting suspect had a history of mental illness and military service

The aftermath of a shooting in the Fort Lauderdale airport
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Esteban Santiago, the 26-year-old believed to have opened fire at Florida's Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport Friday afternoon, is a veteran who deployed to Iraq in 2010 via the Puerto Rico National Guard, serving in an engineering unit before he was discharged for "unsatisfactory performance." The Pentagon said Santiago went AWOL on multiple occasions.

Before the shooting, he was living in Anchorage, Alaska, with his brother, Bryan Santiago, who said he is in shock and described the suspect as a "serious" and "normal" person. However, Santiago's aunt said since returning from Iraq he struggled with mental health and "saw things." "It was like he lost his mind," she said.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.