Airport Screeners Accused of Stealing from Luggage

WXYZ local news ^ | April 28, 2004 | Cheryl Chodun

[clamboat]

Airport Screeners Accused of Stealing from Luggage

By Cheryl Chodun
Web Produced by Jenny DiDomenico
April 28, 2004

Four government workers were charged Wednesday with stealing expensive laptop computers and digital cameras from luggage they were hired to screen at Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus.

Investigators say the workers had easy access to the luggage because they are screeners for the Transportation Security Administration.

According to the federal indictment, the thefts happened between December and February of 2003. According to investigators, the suspects were allegedly taking the items from luggage and selling them, sometimes to other baggage screeners.

Travelers are shocked that this could have happened.

"That is a horrible thing," air traveler Harry Bartle told Action News Wednesday afternoon. "If someone took my laptop, I would be in bad shape."

If found guilty, Tawann Alek Hayes, Shawn Edward Gordon, Edwin Joshua Sturdivant and Joseph Byron Reynolds could each go to prison for up to 10 years. They could also be ordered to pay a $250,000 fine.

[clamboat]

Add this to the growing list of articles about misconduct by TSA screeners or managers. Just search FR for 'screeners'.

[xrp]

This can't be. The screeners are federalized! They're professionalized!

Daschle said, "You don't professionalize unless you federalize."

[patriotUSA]

A thief has only one place in our society. Prison.

[Banjoguy]

It has been going on for years. The thievery phenonemena along with slow baggage service are among the reasons for the transition to small, easily self-transported, carry on.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

When the government is the hirer and the only criterion is that you either be legally blind, deaf, an illegal immigrant, black, Muslim or insane, what do you expect. Idiots begat idiots!

[onyx]

I am not surprised.

[free2freep]

It's worth it to have all my property stolen because the screeners make me feel safer. < /typical sheeple>

[free2freep]

A thief has only one place in our society. Prison. Congress.

[DefCon]

"...Travelers are shocked that this could have happened. ..."
- - -
Who is "shocked" by this?
Not me.
Every traveler should read the fine print on just what the airlines
are "not responsible for" in your checked baggage.
It covers just about everything but your clothing.
If something valuable goes missing, then they just say
hey read the agreement ... we are not responsible.

[blau993]

Ah yes. Mineta's Mirauders strike again.

[TommyDale]

This past year, flying out of Raleigh Durham (RDU) I was
being separated from my laptop. I stopped, told the security people that I would not take my eyes off my computer. They acted a bit snitty, made a smart remark, and let me turn around to keep my eyes on it. I had a bad vibe that morning that someone was trying to hustle some passenger's valuables.

[condi2008]

From a classic Ann Coulter Column (November 22, 2001):

If the airlines had hired the most expensive consultants in the world to try to figure out a way to make the flying experience even more unpleasant than it was before Sept. 11, the consultants would have given up in despair. But chalk one up to American ingenuity: The airlines have done it on their own!

Getting a head start on the holiday season, airport security guards have already begun their Christmas shopping by stealing air travelers' belongings. Unless they pilfer possessions worth more to you than making your plane and avoiding an enormous hassle, there's nothing you can do. And the guards know there's nothing you can do, which adds to the innate charm of security personnel.

A security guard took a piece of my jewelry at the Spokane Airport last Saturday with approval from his Olympic Security supervisor. The alert supervisor called airport police when I asked for her name.

I want it back. It was a silver charm from Aspen in the shape ofa bullet with a great deal of sentimental value. But in a strange coincidence, a few hours later, it was missing from the Olympic security box of confiscated loot. It's probably already wrapped.

If you are not a half-wit -- and not Christmas shopping from other people's stuff -- you will instantly recognize that a silver charm is a silver charm, and it doesn't matter if it's in the shape of the anthrax virus. Even a real bullet can't cause any harm without a gun. A silver charm soldered to a key chain is less threatening than a tube of lipstick. Of course, my lipstick would undoubtedly also have been deemed a grave security risk by Olympic Security if it had been in the supervisor's color.

Since Sept. 11, that silver-charm key chain has been through airport security dozens of times. But security guards are getting nervous. There are only 29 more shopping days till Christmas!

There has been more caterwauling about the Bureau of Prisons listening to the conversations of prison inmates suspected of plotting terrorist attacks than to the universal intrusive physical inspections of Americans trying to board airplanes. If law enforcement officers ever dared paw through the belongings of an Egyptian immigrant named Mustaffa with the fascist intensity of airport security patting down little old ladies suspected of flying to Iowa, the country would go nuts with righteous indignation.

For the entire article, click HERE.

[Gunrunner2]

Yup. . .
Rules for airline travel:
1) Pack light, that's why gawd made hotel laundry
2) If "they" can't touch'em, they can't steal'em.

[donozark]

And UNIONIZED as well!

[AmericaUnited]

What's really scary is that my mom just flew and when we checked in her baggage, the desk person said we should leave the luggage UNLOCKED, so the TSA could possibly inspect the contents. If the bags were locked, they would get cut. I told my mom to keep the bags locked. Better to lose some cheap locks than have any and all miscreants like these few going through the bags, stealing stuff.

[William Terrell]

These are just the ones that were caught.

[wagglebee]

Yep and these federal officials are stealing, just like the IRS, its like an "entitlement."

[sharktrager]

This happened long before they were Federalized, and will happen long after we make them private employees again.

What this shows isn't that things are worse now, but that they aren't any better either.

[Ditter]

Before 9-11 I always locked my suitcase. Now anything other than clothes is carry-on.