No, Fort Lauderdale Shooting Suspect Esteban Santiago Is Not This Sex Offender

This is a mugshot of an Esteban Santiago, but it is not the man suspected of killing five people at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. (Florida Department of Law Enforcement)

The mugshot of a man named Esteban Santiago is circulating on social media, but it is not the same man who is suspected of killing five people and injuring eight others at the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on January 6. The man in the mugshot is 13 years older than the suspect.

This is the Esteban Santiago suspected in the Ft. Lauderdale airport shooting. (Esteban Santiago/Badoo)

The mugshot, seen in full below, was posted by The Gateway Pundit, who incorrectly claimed that CNN aired a doctored version of it to make the man’s skin tone lighter. Others on twitter also shared the mugshot. However, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Sexual Offender/Predator Flyer for this man lists his birth date as May 23, 1977.

That makes him far older than the suspect in the Ft. Lauderdale airport shooting. Fox News reported that the suspect is a 26-year-old U.S. citizen who was born in New Jersey. He was arrested by police, carrying a military identification. The Palm Beach Post reports that Santiago served in the Puerto Rico National Guard and was deployed to Iraq from April 2010 to February 2011. He joined the Alaska Army National Guard in Nnovember 2014 and received a general discharge in August 2016 for “unsatisfactory performance.” His rank at the time he was discharged was Private First Class.

The mugshot of the Esteban Santiago who is a registered sex offender was taken on June 9, 2008 and he is currently not in custody. In September 2005, he was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender. In 2002, he was arrested for a sexual offense in Chautauqua, New York.

This Santiago is also not the only Esteban Santiago to be confused with the suspect. A Twitter user who lives in Miami complained about people asking him if he was the suspect and said he was working at the time of the shooting.

This is the full mugshot of the wrong Esteban Santiago. (Florida Department of Law Enforcement)

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