Cops: Muslim Shoots 2 at Airport Over Joke About Turban
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, May 24, 2002
NEW ORLEANS – A bond of more than $1 million was set Thursday for a Muslim accused of wounding two people with a 12-gauge shotgun at the airport because he said someone joked about his turban.
Patrick Gott, 43, of Pensacola, Fla., was assigned a court-appointed attorney and ordered to undergo a medical evaluation, according to Justice of the Peace Vernon Wilty. Gott claimed he could not afford a lawyer.
Bond was set at $500,000 on each of two charges of attempted murder and $500 on an illegal weapons charge. He was held at Jefferson Parish Jail.
Gott was arrested after he shot two people late Wednesday near a ticket counter at Louis Armstrong International Airport.
One of the victims, a 45-year-old California woman, was in stable but guarded condition at Kenner Regional Hospital. The second victim was treated and released.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee said Thursday the shooting occurred near a ticket counter and not in the secured concourse area. He said two bystanders prevented further bloodshed by wrestling Gott to the ground after he fired one shot.
'Bloodbath'
"If those two guys had not jumped him, there could have been a bloodbath out there," he said.
Lee said Gott had four more shells in the magazine of the pump shotgun and 15 more shells stuffed in his pockets.
Gott told investigators that he was angered when someone at the terminal joked about the turban he was wearing on his head, but Lee said the suspect has told other stories and his officers are still investigating his motive.
Gott was at the terminal to drop his niece off for a flight, accompanied by his mother.
The former Marine had the shotgun stuffed inside a 4-foot-long piece of plastic pipe, which was inside a green duffle bag, according to Lee. He opened fire near the Southwest Airlines ticket counter.
Praise Allah and Pass the Ammo
Gott was carrying a copy of the Koran too. He is a Muslim who recites the Koran daily, he told police.
An attorney who represented Gott in a 1998 South Carolina bankruptcy case described the former Marine as "eccentric" in an interview with the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
"He was not your typical Joe, straight-arrow type," Philip L. Fairbanks said of Gott. "He was a bit eccentric. But he was always perfectly capable of dealing with me. He seemed to be pretty well in touch with reality."
Jefferson Parish authorities said Gott had no criminal record.
Copyright 2002 by United Press International.
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