ATLANTA — The suspect in a stabbing that left three people injured, including a police officer, Wednesday at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was denied bond in a proceeding Thursday.
The officer, identified by the Atlanta Police Department as Lt. Cannon, meanwhile is out of the hospital and recovering.
According to APD, officers assigned to the airport found the woman armed with a knife around 4:45 p.m. She was outside of security, near the west crossover and began walking to the south terminal.
Before officers came across her, she had already stabbed a man, they said. Atlanta Police said the first stabbing happened in a taxi at the north terminal.
By the south terminal, officers tried to convince her to drop the knife and were working to restrict her movement and clear travelers from the area. During this encounter, she stabbed a woman and then Lt. Cannon as he tried to take her into custody.
Ultimately, another officer tackled her to the ground and they used pepper spray and tasers to take her into custody.
Several passengers who were waiting in line to go through security witnessed the frightening ordeal inside the south terminal. Some of them even felt the repercussions after getting pepper spray in their eyes, noses and mouths that was used to help subdue the suspect.
Latoria Boyd was one of those passengers who was in Atlanta for the day on a business trip. She said she was in the TSA PreCheck line waiting to be screened for her flight back to Florida Wednesday afternoon.
She said out of the corner of her eye, "I could see the young lady walking backwards." Boyd said it wasn't until a few seconds later she noticed an officer with a rifle which caught her attention.
She said a few seconds later, more officers were surrounding this woman. Boyd said she also realized the woman was holding a knife.
"It was a good-sized knife. It wasn't like a small pocket knife," she explained.
Boyd described when police started to engage with the woman in the TSA PreCheck line.
"And she's like, 'Yeah, make sure you post this. So now everybody's looking, but we see all of these guns pointed directly at us,"' Boyd explained.
She said as the officers had her surrounded, the woman was still waiving the knife around. They noticed an Atlanta Police officer start to move in behind the suspect.
"Her peripheral vision was very good," Boyd said. "So she saw him coming and she immediately turned the knife, started you know like cutting him with the knife."
Lt. Cannon was stabbed in the leg, APD said.
The suspect, a woman, will next have a preliminary hearing on Nov. 13.