LOS ANGELES _ Paul Ciancia, the gunman whose 2013 rampage at Los Angeles International Airport left a Transportation Security Administration officer dead, has agreed to plead guilty, according to court papers filed Thursday.
In a plea agreement that Ciancia signed on Aug. 30, he agreed to enter a guilty plea to 11 felony charges, including the murder of a federal officer, during the Nov. 1, 2013, attack in which he opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle in the airport's busy Terminal 3.
Ciancia admitted to killing Gerardo Hernandez and to the attempted murder of two other TSA officers who were working in the airport.
As part of the plea deal, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. The murder count to which Ciancia agreed to plead guilty to carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. The weapons charges carry another mandatory 60 years in prison.
Hernandez, 39, was the first TSA employee killed in the line of duty since the agency was formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The decision to seek the death penalty had been made by then-U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. To justify their decision to seek death, prosecutors cited several factors, alleging Ciancia's actions were intentional and occurred after "substantial planning and premeditation."
Witnesses to the shooting said the gunman asked them whether they worked for the TSA before moving on without shooting them.
Ciancia, a New Jersey native living in Los Angeles, was shot in the head and leg during a gun battle with airport police. He spent two weeks recovering at a hospital before he was transferred to a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where he remains in custody.
