On Q Professional Investigations

THE man wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants stood casually inside a security screening area at a San Francisco airport terminal. As security officers and passengers bustled, he pointed to a woman and took her into the private screening room. Later, he pointed to another woman, and she followed him in as well.

The man, despite also wearing the blue latex gloves used by screeners, was no professional officer, said John S. Pistole, the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration. He was just another passenger with an international ticket.

Mr. Pistole described the encounters for me based on the surveillance video from the international terminal at San Francisco International Airport. Around noon on July 15, the man acted “like a security officer,” Mr. Pistole said, directing two women into the private area for extra screening, for about a minute at a time.

Each woman left the room not exhibiting apparent signs of distress. But an actual screener thought that something was wrong. Only female officers are supposed to accompany women sent into the private room for extra screening, which can include a full-body pat-down. And blue shirt and gloves notwithstanding, the man had no badge or emblem on his shirt, clearly not a screening officer.

The man, whom the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office identified as Eric Slighton, 53, was arrested, charged with public intoxication, taken to jail and released on bail. He had been scheduled for an arraignment this week, but on Friday, the district attorney’s office said it would not prosecute. “We could not prove the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Albert A. Serrato, an assistant district attorney.

The police tried to identify which flights any possible victims might have taken or where they might have flown, the sheriff’s office said. But the women have not been found.

Attempts to reach Mr. Slighton, who had a ticket that day to fly to Hong Kong, were not successful. A resident of San Francisco and Hong Kong, Mr. Slighton is a director at Aktis Capital Singapore, a private equity firm. A statement acknowledging the incident by the related Aktis Hanxi Group said, “Mr. Slighton has been granted a leave of absence.” Calls and emails to the group’s offices were not returned.

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The decoy waited behind closed doors for a crowd to emerge from Tampa International Airport’s airside shuttle. Taking up a backpack and carrying a water bottle, he melded with the crowd heading toward security screening.

In the long, winding maze leading toward the checkpoint, John Forbes, a Transportation Security Administration employee, made his way toward the X-ray machines.

Up ahead, Explosives Detection K-9 Handler Brandy Smith walked Guiness down the rows, against the crowd.

The demure 40-pound Labrador mix eyeballed passengers lugging carry-­on bags and purses, occasionally sniffing.

The moment Forbes walked past, Guiness alerted, lunging toward the training decoy, then sitting next to his suspect. No aggression, no panic, no barking. His immediate paycheck: a few moments tugging at a squeaky toy.

Guiness is one of four explosives-detection dogs at Tampa International to screen passengers as they make their way toward the security checkpoint. About 100 screening dogs work for TSA throughout the country.

Passengers who get a casual sniff are sometimes fast-tracked through security using the TSA’s new precheck line, skipping the removal of jackets, shoes and laptops.

“That sniff deems them low risk” and allows security personnel to keep the line moving faster, said TSA spokesman Mark Howell.

Charles Cloyd, TSA K-9 supervisor and a onetime handler, said: “Right now, we are using them at the larger, busier airports. They are deployed based on risk.

“These dogs are excellent,” Cloyd said. “Their capabilities exceed electronic detection, and their mobility is another advantage.”

The dogs are carefully vetted before going through training, which takes place at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

If a dog shows signs of aggression or a lack of drive, it’s out.

The dogs are medium-sized so passengers don’t perceive them as intimidating, Cloyd said.

“People like them and tend to feel safer knowing they are sniffing their fellow passengers,” he said.

“These dogs can detect parts per trillion of explosives,” Cloyd said.

And it’s not just actual explosives, but also components of explosives, Cloyd said.

The dogs are trained specifically for this task, not for subduing other criminals or tracking down drugs. But they may detect someone with marijuana if it carries the scent of fertilizer, a potential bomb-making compound.

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Washington DC Jan 28 2014 On Friday, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) released its Blog Year In Review for 2013.

The annual review is a veritable gold mine of the bizarre things people have tried to bring on airplanes in the United States over the past year.

Some of this stuff has to be seen to be believed.

First off, the TSA found 1,813 firearms in carry-on bags at airport checkpoints last year. That’s about five a day, and represents a 16.5 percent increase from the year before.

Of those 1,813 guns found in 2013, 81 percent were loaded. The most guns were found at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, with Dallas/Fort Worth International coming in second place.

Other items found in travelers’ carry-on bags in 2013 included 562 stun guns, black powder, inert demolition explosives, smoke grenades, flashbang grenades and flare guns.

Airport officers with TSA also found some interesting items in travelers’ checked bags, including a World War II-era bazooka (luckily it wasn’t a functioning weapon) and this rather realistic-looking suicide vest, which ended up being fake and belonging to an explosives instructor.

In a checked bag at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida, officers found one of the strangest things of the year: human skull remains. The bone fragments were found in some clay pots in checked baggage, whose owners said they had “no idea” the skull pieces were in there.

Lastly, TSA agents found lots of walking canes with concealed swords inside them.

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One of the main reasons that Americans hate to fly is the Transporation Security Administration (TSA). Not only is it annoying to have to strip down at security checkpoints, submit to the occasional patdown and stand in long lines to verify our identities, but the entire system is inefficient. So what happens if we take humans off of those jobs and use machines instead? Several European airports are looking to answer that question by installing eye and face scanners, along with fingerprint readers, at security checkpoints.

Many airports’ immigration checks have used these measures, but the idea of using biometric technology at security checkpoints is still relatively new. The move would take humans out of the equation and let machines, which don’t succumb to things like getting tired on the job, take care of ID’ing flyers instead. Airline industry officials believe this automation will make air travel better, keep flyers happier and make security more efficient. And obviously, using biometrics could also save the industry a lot of money.

So how does a biometric security checkpoint work? London’s Gatwick airport, which performed a trial earlier this year, started by getting rid of boarding passes altogether. Eye scans verified fliers, allowing security cameras to identify them not only for the security checkpoint, but also for their boarding gate. Next year, London’s Heathrow airport and Amsterdown’s Airport Schiphol will start using a new baggage-screening technology that will take humans entirely out of the process. According to experts, these new machines use algorithms that are more likely to find explosives than a human.

As you can imagine, this idea of replacing man with machine isn’t going well with some. Some would argue that a machine can’t identify things like behavioral patterns and that such machines are predictable, meaning that terrorists could outwit them. Others believe this unlikely as biometrics is harder to fake than a boarding pass. The naysayers also can’t argue with the statistics: when Amsterdam Schiphol tested its facial recognition scanners, the machines were right 98 percent of the time and only allowed 1 out of 1,000 false identities through the system. No numbers are available for similar human statistics, but these numbers are impressive.

More than likely, though, no TSA jobs will be lost when these systems go live in U.S. airports. Industry officials expect that using biometrics at security checkpoints will free up TSA agents to focus their time and abilities on watching for suspicious behaviors. Needless to say, these new measures will speed up getting through airport security, and that makes this technology, along with faster carry on luggage screeners, a very good thing.

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ST. LOUIS • A sock monkey dressed as a cowboy made his flight to Seattle from St. Louis last week, but his tiny sidearm had to stay behind.

Phyllis McDill May, who sews the dolls for gifts and for sale, said Friday that it seemed extreme for a Transportation Security Administration agent here to confiscate a miniature toy revolver that was so obviously not a real firearm.

“She was doing her job and I understand that,” May said. “But I thought she’d take it out and look at it and see it’s a toy and give it back.”

The TSA’s response: “Under longstanding aircraft security policy, and out of an abundance of caution, realistic replicas of firearms are prohibited in carry-on bags.”

May, 57, who lives in suburban Seattle, thinks the monkey’s gun was not that realistic. It is about two inches long and weighs less than an ounce, she explained. Its trigger and hammer move, but the barrel is solid.

Still, there is a real gun in the same size range. The smallest revolver in the world is the SwissMiniGun, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It’s 2.2 inches long, 1 centimeter wide and weighs less than an ounce — and a bullet fired from it reportedly can hit a target roughly 525 feet away.

The novelty weapon costs from $5,200 and $48,000, depending on its finish. And it’s illegal to own in the U.S., according to the Swiss manufacturer’s website.

The play gun for the sock monkey, by contrast, cost $2.50 at an online doll-supply store, May said.

She said the encounter Dec. 3 happened as she and her husband passed through security at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, on their way home after visiting family in the Metro East area for Thanksgiving.

She carried a bag with sewing supplies and the beginnings of a monkey she calls Rooster Monkburn, a play on the name Rooster Cogburn, a character played by John Wayne in the 1969 movie “True Grit.”

Rooster wore blue jeans. May planned to finish his shirt and vest during the plane ride.

The TSA agent found the toy revolver in a pocket of a bag, and at one point threatened to call police, May said. The agent told her that if the barrel were pressed against her neck, she wouldn’t know whether it was real or fake.

“I would know it’s a toy,” May said. “We’re not James Bond here.”

Since returning home, May has finished sewing Rooster, and replaced his pistol.

May plans to fly back to St. Louis on Tuesday to celebrate Christmas with family in the O’Fallon-Fairview Heights area, where she grew up. She’ll leave the gun at home, she said. Or at least put it in checked luggage.

Robert Patrick of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
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More air travelers try to bring guns aboard their flights at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport than any other Florida airport, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

The surveillance video exclusively obtained by NBC 6 leaves little doubt about the TSA’s findings. Checkpoint agents who are screening the passengers and their carryon bags intercept the weapons before they can make it aboard.

One passenger tried to make it through with this small caliber weapon and six bullets. It turns out Fort Lauderdale has been the number one place in Florida for passengers trying to get weapons past security checkpoints or on board in their luggage.

“Florida leads the nation in the number of concealed weapons permits that people have. I think that drives the numbers up. Plus, I think more people are carrying on a day-to-day basis,” said Broward Sheriff’s Office Capt.Roy Liddicott.

TSA agents at the airport in Fort Lauderdale said so far this year they’ve found 38 weapons. Last year, they found a total of 43. At the Miami airport, agents have confiscated 30, more than double the number from the previous year.

A review of TSA and local police reports found that all types of people show up ready to fly, while packing heat. Authorities say Broward pastor Edward Brinson brought his loaded .380 Kel-Tec. He had a valid weapons permit and was allowed to fly after taking his gun back to his car, authorities said.

Others, though, end up under arrest, like Atis Clifford. He wound up in jail instead of on his flight to Pittsburgh. Clifford was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, authorities said. There was no flight to Baltimore for Angel Ward either. Police say she had her 25 caliber Colt with six bullets in her carryon bag. She told police she forgot to take it out but was still charged.

“Most people tell us they forgot, but you can still be arrested and we have arrested people in the past,” said Liddicott.

One senior citizen had his vacation ruined when he tried to get to the Bahamas with this Kel-Tec handgun. The TSA saId technology and screeners are working around the clock to make sure the weapons don’t slip through.

NBC 6 reached out to the pastor for comment, but he didn’t want to talk about what happened. The two other people who were arrested say they’re not guilty and have court dates coming up.

While some of the weapons taken come from those making mistakes, the security teams don’t have any room for error in case there is someone out to do real harm.

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(CNN) — A flight to America’s adult playground, Las Vegas, had an unusual passenger last week: a 9-year-old boy traveling on his own, apparently without a ticket.

The boy went through security with all other passengers, the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement, but officials are still trying to figure out how he did it — and how he then got on the flight.

Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said the crew of Delta Flight 1651 “became suspicious of the child’s circumstances” during the flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas. Crew members got in touch with authorities in Las Vegas and turned the boy over to Child Protective Services, Hogan said in a statement.

“Fortunately, the flight crew took appropriate actions to ensure the child’s safety, so the story does have a good ending,” he said.
Delta said it takes the incident “very seriously” and is working with authorities.

The airline spells out its policy about children flying solo plainly on its website.

Children between the ages of 5 and 14 may travel alone as part of the unaccompanied minor program. Someone from Delta pays special attention to the children, walks them on board, shows them their seats and even introduces them to the cockpit crew, time permitting, Delta says, adding, “Kids love this part.

Airport officials reviewed security footage and don’t think the child had a ticket, CNN affiliate KARE reported.

The boy, a runaway from the Twin Cities, spent a good amount of time at the airport before boarding the plane, KARE said.

He was there the day before, the station reported, citing airport officials. He passed his time by taking luggage from a carousel, bringing it to an airport eatery and then ditching it, asking a server to watch the bag “while he went to the restroom.”

The following day the child took the train to the airport, cleared security and made it to Las Vegas nearly without detection.

“Obviously, the fact that the child’s actions weren’t detected until he was in flight is concerning,” Hogan wrote. Still, 33 million people travel through Minneapolis’ airport every year, he noted. “I don’t know of another instance in my 13 years at the airport in which anything similar has happened,” he said.

Man pleads guilty to slapping crying boy on Delta flight

A flight security expert said it’s very concerning that the child made it through several security checks.

“All of this (security) since 9/11 has been to keep us safe. And it has, but still we have gaping holes, and this is a perfect example of it,” Terry Trippler of ThePlaneRules.com told KARE.

The incident may be a first for Minneapolis, but over the years other airports have had similar incidents.

In 2007, another 9-year-old managed to fly from Seattle to Phoenix to San Antonio before being found out. He had a boarding pass, though. His mother told CNN her son gave ticketing agents a fake name.

Last year an 11-year-old boy in Manchester, England, managed to slip away from his mother during a shopping trip. He made it all the way to Rome without a boarding pass or a passport. But any Colosseum dreams were dashed. He never left the airport in Rome and was returned to his parents the same day.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Federal agents will start targeting high-level drug traffickers in Puerto Rico with intelligence gathered during a three-month blitz on criminal activity in the U.S. territory, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday.

The campaign is part of operation “Caribbean Resilience,” which began in July 2012 and focuses on the smuggling of drugs, weapons, money and migrants.

The agency says agents have seized some 53,000 pounds (24,000 kilograms) of drugs, confiscated more than 170 firearms and arrested more than 320 suspected criminals who will be prosecuted at federal and local levels.

“We have not only made the streets of Puerto Rico much safer, but also improved security in the mainland United States,” said John Sandweg, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Officials said the drugs in Puerto Rico are mostly cocaine and some heroin imported from Latin America that is being sold locally as well as shipped to the U.S. and Europe. Weapons are being smuggled in from the U.S. mainland through checked luggage, and Transportation Security Administration officials have adjusted screening procedures to catch the firearms, the DHS said.
Agents have increased the number of cargo inspections and strengthened security at the main international airport by adding more dogs and officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The U.S. Coast Guard bolstered its resources in areas including the eastern portion of the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Mona Passage, a popular smuggling route that lies between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Some 30 agents with Homeland Security Investigations were assigned to the island over the past three months, and an additional seven agents were permanently deployed, DHS officials said.

The three-month offensive focused on street-level enforcement that allowed agents to cull intelligence following the arrests of dozens of suspects, the DHS said.

The island of 3.7 million people is struggling with a crime wave that brought a record 1,117 homicides in 2011.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Orlando Fla Sept 22 2013 Florida gun owners are being advised to repack their bags before flying after a recent jump in seized firearms at airports across the state.

Ten handguns were confiscated in less than a week in Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Miami and Orlando with the most recent stopped today in Tampa, according to the federal Transportation Security Administration on Thursday.

“Unpack before packing to be sure you do not have prohibited items such as guns in your carry-on bag,” TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz wrote in an email.
Orlando International Airport continues to lead the state with 31 guns seized this year. Fort Lauderdale and Tampa are tied at 29. Others include Miami, 25, Jacksonville, 19, and Palm Beach, 10, records show.

The latest Orlando case was Saturday afternoon when a state concealed-weapon permit holder was arrested trying to board a flight to Minneapolis with a loaded .380-caliber pistol in his carry-on bag, records show.

Gregory Squires, 45, of St. Cloud was charged with carrying a firearm in a place prohibited by law and booked at the Orange County Jail.
Besides the criminal charge, he faces up to $11,000 in federal fines, records show.

The recent gun confiscations include four in four days in Miami and three in four days in Jacksonville.

Passengers on domestic flights are allowed to travel with firearms if they are properly declared, unloaded and cased inside checked luggage. T
SA advises travelers to check local and state gun laws. More information is available at http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information.

More than 1,500 guns were stopped by TSA officers last year.

More than 1,200 have been stopped this year, according to TSA.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Several times every day, at airports across the country, passengers are trying to walk through security with loaded guns in their carry-on bags, purses or pockets, even in a boot. And, more than a decade after 9/11 raised consciousness about airline security, it’s happening a lot more often.

In the first six months of this year, Transportation Security Administration screeners found 894 guns on passengers or in their carry-on bags, a 30 percent increase over the same period last year. The TSA set a record in May for the most guns seized in one week — 65 in all, 45 of them loaded and 15 with bullets in the chamber and ready to be fired. That was 30 percent more than the previous record of 50 guns, set just two weeks earlier.

Last year TSA found 1,549 firearms on passengers attempting to go through screening, up 17 percent from the year before.

In response to a request from The Associated Press, the agency provided figures on the number of firearm incidents in 2011 and 2012 for all U.S. airports, as well as the number of passengers screened at each airport. The AP analyzed the data, as well as weekly blog reports from the agency on intercepted guns from this year and last year.

TSA didn’t keep statistics on guns intercepted before 2011, but officials have noticed an upward trend in recent years, said spokesman David Castelveter.

Some of the details make officials shake their heads.

As one passenger took off his jacket to go through screening in Sacramento, Calif., last year, TSA officers noticed he was wearing a shoulder holster, and in it was a loaded 9 mm pistol. The same passenger was found to have three more loaded pistols, 192 rounds of ammunition, two magazines and three knives.

Screeners elsewhere found a .45-caliber pistol and magazine hidden inside a cassette deck. Another .45-caliber pistol loaded with seven rounds, including a round in the chamber, was hidden under the lining of a carry-on bag in Charlotte, N.C. A passenger in Allentown, Pa., was carrying a pistol designed to look like a writing pen. At first the passenger said it was just a pen, but later acknowledged it was a gun, according to TSA.

A passenger in March at Bradley Hartford International Airport in Connecticut had a loaded .38-caliber pistol containing eight rounds strapped to his lower left leg. At Salt Lake City International Airport, a gun was found inside a passenger’s boot strapped to a prosthetic leg.

TSA doesn’t believe these gun-toting passengers are terrorists, but the agency can’t explain why so many passengers try to board planes with guns, either, Castelveter said. The most common excuse offered by passengers is “I forgot it was there.”

“We don’t analyze the behavioral traits of people who carry weapons. We’re looking for terrorists,” he said. “But sometimes you have to scratch your head and say, ‘Why?’”

Many passengers found to have guns by screeners are arrested, but not all. It depends on the gun laws where the airport is located. If the state or jurisdiction where the airport is located has tolerant gun laws, TSA screeners will frequently hand the gun back to the passenger and recommend locking it in a car or finding some other safe place for it. The government doesn’t track what happens to the people who are arrested.

Is it plausible that some people are so used to carrying guns that they simply forget that they have them, even when they’re at an airport about to walk through a scanner? Or do some people try to bring their guns with them when they fly because they think they won’t get caught?

Jimmy Taylor, a sociology professor at Ohio University-Zanesville and the author of several books on the nation’s gun culture, said some gun owners are so used to carrying concealed weapons that it’s no different to them than carrying keys or a wallet.

The most common reason people say they carry guns is for protection, so it also makes sense that most of the guns intercepted by TSA are loaded, Taylor said. Many gun owners keep their weapons loaded so they’re ready if needed, he said.

Even so, Taylor said he finds it hard to believe airline passengers forget they’re carrying guns.

“My wife and I check on things like eye drops and Chapstick to see if we’re allowed to take them on a plane, so it’s a little difficult to imagine that you aren’t checking the policies about your loaded firearm before you get to the airport,” he said.

Occasionally passengers stopped by TSA are people who are used to carrying guns because they work in law enforcement, security or the military, but that doesn’t appear to be the case most of the time.

Robert Spitzer, an expert on gun policy and gun rights, theorizes that for some, the “I forgot” answer is an excuse, “just like somebody who walks out of a store with an unpaid-for item in their pocket. The first thing that person will say is, ‘I forgot.’ Do people forget sometimes? Sure they do. But are there also people who try to shoplift to get away with something? Sure there are, and I think that’s no less true with guns.”

Eighty-five percent of the guns intercepted last year were loaded. The most common type of gun was a .38-caliber pistol.

Airports in the South and the West, where the American gun culture is strongest, had the greatest number of guns intercepted, according to TSA data.

Of the 12 airports with the most guns last year, five are in Texas: Dallas-Fort Worth International, 80 guns; George Bush Intercontinental in Houston, 52; Dallas Love Field, 37; William P. Hobby in Houston, 35, and Austin-Bergstrom International, 33. Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta had the most for any airport, at 96. Others include Phoenix Sky Harbor, 54; Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International in Florida, 42; Denver International, 39; Seattle-Tacoma International, 37; Orlando International Airport in Florida, 36, and Tampa International in Florida, 33.

When expressed as a proportion of airport traffic volume, small airports in the West and South led the way. The airport in Roswell, N.M., had 8.5 guns intercepted per 100,000 passengers last year; Cedar City, Utah, and Provo, Utah, both 6.5; Longview, Texas, 4.9; Dickinson, N.D., 4; Joplin, Mo., 3.8; Twin Falls, Idaho, 3.4; Fort Smith, Ark., 3.3, and Walla Walla, Wash., and Elko, Nev., both 2.9.

By contrast, at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, where TSA screened nearly 27 million passengers last year, there was a single passenger found to have a gun.

“There are some Americans who believe that there are no limits, that they not only have a constitutional but a God-given right to have a gun and ‘By gosh, if I want to bring a gun on a plane I’m going to do it,’” said Spitzer, a professor at the State University of New York-Cortland.

TSA’s count of guns intercepted doesn’t include all the other kinds of prohibited “guns” that TSA screeners find, like flare guns, BB guns, air guns, spear guns, pellet guns and starter pistols. Screeners find half a dozen to several dozen stun guns on passengers or in their carry-on bags each week. Last December, screeners stopped a passenger in Boston with seven stun guns in his bag. He said they were Christmas presents. The same week, screeners spotted 26 stun guns in the carry-on bag of a passenger at JFK. TSA has found several stun guns disguised as smartphones, and one that looked like a package of cigarettes.

Passengers are allowed to take guns with them when they fly, but only as checked baggage. They are required to fill out a form declaring the weapons and to carry them in a hard-sided bag with a lock.

Most of those who are stopped with guns are reluctant to talk about it afterward. One who didn’t mind was Raymond Whitehead, 53, of Santa Fe, N.M., who was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey in May after screeners spotted 10 hollow-point bullets in his carry-on bag. Whitehead, who is completely blind, also had a .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver in his checked bag that he had failed to declare. He said in an interview with the AP that he was unaware of the specifics of the rules for checking guns, or that hollow-point bullets are illegal in New Jersey.

Whitehead acknowledged that it seems “counterintuitive” for a blind man to have a gun but said he keeps a loaded gun handy for protection from intruders. In such a situation, he said, he would call out a warning that he had a gun and spray bullets in the direction of the noise if the intruder didn’t leave.

“I have five shots, and if I fan it out I’m going to hit you,” said Whitehead, a National Rifle Association member who owns five guns.

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