Friday, May 25, 2012

TSA Week in Review: Never Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

Gift Horse?: A passenger at Helena (HLN) thought that fireworks were allowed on planes and apparently prefers to store their fireworks in a ceramic horse. Whether it was a gift or not, we don’t really know…

Screwy Grenade:Speaking of grenades, check out the photo of the screwy grenade our officers found at Newark (EWR). It opens up to reveal screwdriver bits.

Bat'leth?: I don’t know what the knife is actually called, but I have to admit that it looks like a compact version of a Klingon Bat'leth. Do you think Klingons travel through LaGuardia (LGA)?

In a Jam: A passenger at Florence (FLO) concealed a bag a marijuana inside a jar of raspberry jam.As I’ve often said, we’re not looking for drugs, but an organic substance stuffed in a jar of jelly looks odd. Also, a jar of jelly over 3.4 ounces is prohibited and likely to bring our officer’s attention to it.

False Top Soda Can: A bag of marijuana was discovered stuffed in a cola can with a false top at LaGuardia (LGA). As with the jam I mentioned above, this looks odd and we’re going to look.

Smoking is Still Prohibited: An MK-13 projectile smoke grenade was discovered in a check bag at Newport News (PHF).

Knives in Odd Places: A small pocketknife was discovered wrapped in a cloth and hidden at the bottom of a stick of deodorant at Detroit (DTW). Another knife was found inside the lining of a bag and taped to the bag handle at Grand Rapids (GRR). And yet another knife was discovered taped to the frame of the bag under the lining at Bradley (BDL). And if that wasn’t enough, a man had a knife in his shoe at New York Kennedy (JFK).

Miscellaneous Prohibited Items -In addition to all of the other prohibited items we find weekly, our Officers also found firearm components, realistic replica firearms, stun guns, brass knuckles, a bazillion knives, ammunition, and batons.




Firearms- Here are the firearms our Officers found in carry-on baggage since I posted last Friday.

You can travel with your firearms in checked baggage, but they must first be declared to the airline.You can go here for more details on how to properly travel with your firearms.Firearm possession laws vary by state and locality. Travelers should familiarize themselves with state and local firearm laws for each point of travel prior to departure.

Unfortunately these sorts of occurrences are all too frequent which is why we talk about these finds. Sure, it’s great to share the things that our officers are finding, but at the same time, each time we find a dangerous item, the throughput is slowed down and a passenger that likely had no ill intent ends up with a citation or in some cases is even arrested. This is a friendly reminder to please leave these items at home. Just because we find a prohibited item on an individual does not mean they had bad intentions, that's for the law enforcement officer to decide. In many cases, people simply forgot they had these items.

Blogger Bob Burns
TSA Blog Team

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The TSA Blog: TSA Week in Review: Never Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth