Airport Police - Teacher's Bookmark Could Have Been Weapon - Charged

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TAMPA, Fla. -- Federal officials say a school teacher charged with carrying a concealed weapon -- her weighted bookmark -- into Tampa International Airport may soon be cleared.

Kathryn Harrington, 52, of Laurel, Md., was flying home from vacation Aug. 17 when airport screeners found her bookmark, an 8 1/2-inch leather strap with small lead weights at each end.

She had carried it on several flights since the 2001 terrorist attacks, even through Tampa, but screeners had never noticed it, she said.

This time they did, and thought it resembled a weighted weapon that could be used to knock people unconscious. Airport police charged her with carrying a concealed weapon.

"It was a bookmark," Harrington, a special education teacher, told the St. Petersburg Times. "It's not a weapon. I could not understand why I was being handcuffed and put into a police car. I cried for hours."

http://www.wftv.com/newsofthestrange/3738324/detail.html

I cannot believe the crap that comes out of the TSA screeners in airports. I actually had one mumble under his breath, "This isn't rocket science," while a poor older woman tried for the third time to get through the metal detector. First time was shoes...second time was a necklace and the third time was apparently a metalic beading on her belt which she had to remove before being 'wanded.'

What a load of shit...
theProdigal

for if you happen to be sitting next to some boorish passenger who just won't stop talking to you. 'Clonk!' Although I don't see how a 'terrorist' could successfully take over a plane by clonking people on the head, one by one, and you'd have to clonk some people 3 or 4 times to knock them out. Kinda assinine if you ask me.

... I think she should have been given the opportunity to verify if it was a weapon, or not. A supervisor should be called out to act as a demonstration model and she should have been given the opportunity to whop him or her up side the chops with the "concealed weapon". If the person whopped didn't fall down in pants-pissing spasms, then it wasn't a weapon.

Maybe then, the supervisors wouldn't be quite so twitchy about "concealed weapons."

Got a pen? Weapon. A comb or a hairbrush? Weapon. A laptop computer? Weapon. A purse or handbag? A cane? A necktie? Shoelaces? Belt? A heavy book? A newspaper? A hot cup of coffee?

Anything that can be thrown, swung, or that is pionty on any way. The TSA lacks simple everyday common sense.

:eyes: