Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Friday that law enforcement were most likely "troubled" by the randomness of the shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport that left eight people dead and eight others injured.
"I think what they'll probably be troubled by is that the attack did not seem targeted at specific individual, but rather just kind of widespread across the baggage claim area," the two-term Republican told Jim Sciutto on CNN.
"That was, in fact, one of the potential causes that was brought up among several others" by law enforcement, he added.
"But we're not trying to be evasive. I certainly am not.
"Truly they don't know," Rubio said.
The senator also mentioned another "unusual" element of the attack, reportedly by Esteban Santiago, 26, whom local police later arrested without incident.
"If you wanted to shoot up the baggage-claim area of any airport in America, you don't have to fly there on an airplane, check it in your bag and wait for the bag to come out.
"You can just drive up, walk in and do it," Rubio told Sciutto.
"So, I think that's putting some doubt in their minds about premeditation in terms of [the airport] being a specific target."
He added that state and federal authorities would work carefully to determine whether the rampage was terrorism.
"They will take every precaution on the ground," Rubio said.
"There could be federal criminal violations here, in fact there no doubt is, they do not at least initially see this as some sort of an act of terrorism in terms of what we normally associate with terrorizing.
"As of this moment anyway, that's not the way they're approaching it," he added. "I'm not sure they've ruled that out.
"They have to gather information."
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