Posted on 04/04/2002 6:50:19 AM PST by SLB
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - (AP) -- Three passengers in their 70s were arrested and later released in separate incidents at Palm Beach International Airport for allegedly trying to board flights while carrying knives.
Security screeners found the knives in carry-on luggage during routine checks early Wednesday, airport sheriff's deputies said.
Authorities charged each traveler with carrying a concealed weapon, a first-degree misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to a year in the county jail and a $1,000 fine. The FBI declined to press federal charges.
According to sheriff's records, Harold Shepard, 71, of New York, told deputies he was not carrying knives. Officers said they arrested Shepard after finding a knife with a 7 ½-inch blade in a box that was taped shut. He was later released from jail on $250 bond.
In the other incidents, Elizabeth Napleton, 76, of Illinois, and Stanley Reinhart, 79, of California, were issued notices to appear in court and allowed to board their flights. Authorities did not release their hometowns.
Napleton told deputies that she had meant to check the briefcase containing the knives, but later decided to bring it on the plane, authorities said.
Reinhart was stopped while carrying a steak knife with a 5-inch blade packed in his shaving kit, authorities said. Reinhart said he had just driven across the country and had kept the knife to cut his food while he was staying in hotels.
Stay Safe Joe !!
Well, I have mixed feelings about profiling.
If I were a terrorist and wanted to sneak a knife or some other weapon on board, and I knew that the little old lady waiting in line would not be searched, I just might decide to slip that weapon into her kniting bag. Likewise, a youngster might be induced to "Hold" this bag for me until we're on the plane so I can run and buy some candy for us, etc.
The point is, these unlikely people, might be the victims of terrorists or drug dealers, not necessarily terrorists themselves.
In you usual crowd control criminal situation you wound one person in a way that makes a lot of blood and leaves them screaming in pain, this scares the crap out of everybody else, but by leaving the victim alive it also plants a seed of hope. Again this is seen in 9-11, as long as the passengers had the seed of hope they did nothing, it wasn't until they knew they were going to die that they decided to die like heros. As long as hijackers leave that seed of hope in their victims you're unlikely to see major resistance. Because of the new possibilities you'll see more resistance than you used to, but it won't be anywhere near universal, civilized man just isn't cut out for that kind of stuff.
BTW did ya check that Arafat gun thread ? Been a while since I attended the Foregin Materials Intel course behind the fence at Aberdeen...........Need help from one of the younger pros !......
Stay Safe
Why?
You do realize, right, that LEOs misuse their firearms more often than CCW holders?
Not if an unknown number of regular passengers were armed, it couldn't.
Stay Safe !
Most security works by threat, not by capture. That's why El Al is safe, not because they're security measures catch so many hijackers, but because the hijackers are so intimidated by those measures they don't even try to get around them. All security, from the lock on your front door to Los Alamos, works by convincing bad guys there's an easier mark somewhere else; by making it too inconvenient and with too high a percieved chance for capture the bad guys go elsewhere. Unfortunately the best way to make things inconvenient for bad guys also makes things inconvenient for everybody else. That's why I say all security impedes liberty, our job as a society is to work towards the best ratio.
I would not take much brain power to discover that the little old ladie with the Buck Knife at the top of her purse could be the pasty for the young Arab behind her in line.
True airport security would have CCTV at each terminal entry point to record and send live broadcast to other security people. We "know" that this is currently NOT the case with the many incidents of people disappearing into the terminals after they were faulted at the check point.
I feel that what is happening now is only conditioning and not protection.
We also have to recognize what I call "new gaurd syndrome". Any of you that have ever worked someplace that had a vinear of security are probably familiar with this. When they hire a new person that guy tend to be religious about the rules, rules you might not have known existed because the old gaurds didn't give a crap. But eventually the new guy stops being a new guy and starts only following the rules he likes.
Because of the horror of 9-11, and how this focused attention on airport security, in a sense all the personel are now "new gaurds". So they're going the extra length which is really annoying for John Q Public. Eventually they'll settle down, hopefully they won't settle too far though.
I have never once seen the word 'Chainsaws' on that list.
I advise bringing chainsaws on board. They are not in the list of prohibited items and they fit neatly into overhead luggage.
I think that the appearance of security that we had before 911 was a joke. Clearly the airline checkpoints were there to make you feel safe. Now it would be reasonable to add more than the checkpoint and add real prevention measures. Many of these can be done by government.
But the airlines need to provide some customer service here and do their part as well. I think an airline should be able to say "we are safer than the other airline" and be able to back it up by presenting new security measures that make sense and do not inconvenience their customers. Instead the airlines have no accountability here, that is wrong. I as a consumer, should have the ability to choose service based upon security, I cannot now and this also is wrong.
It would be nothing to challenge each incident to prove that a good profile is not some type of discrimination.
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