What is this country coming to?
Sep. 20th, 2004 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maderrSuspicious Bookmark Gets Teacher Arrested
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A weight may soon be lifted off a Maryland woman charged with carrying a concealed weapon in an airport.
It wasn't a gun or a knife. It was a weighted bookmark.
Kathryn Harrington was flying home from vacation last month when screeners at the Tampa, Fla., airport found her bookmark. It's an eight-and-a-half-inch leather strip with small lead weights at each end.
Airport police said it resembled a weighted weapon that could be used to knock people unconscious. So the 52-year-old special education teacher was handcuffed, put into a police car, and charged with carrying a concealed weapon.
She faced a possible criminal trial and a $10,000 fine. But the state declined to prosecute, and the Transportation Security Administration says it probably won't impose a fine.
-Taken from foxnews.com
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A weight may soon be lifted off a Maryland woman charged with carrying a concealed weapon in an airport.
It wasn't a gun or a knife. It was a weighted bookmark.
Kathryn Harrington was flying home from vacation last month when screeners at the Tampa, Fla., airport found her bookmark. It's an eight-and-a-half-inch leather strip with small lead weights at each end.
Airport police said it resembled a weighted weapon that could be used to knock people unconscious. So the 52-year-old special education teacher was handcuffed, put into a police car, and charged with carrying a concealed weapon.
She faced a possible criminal trial and a $10,000 fine. But the state declined to prosecute, and the Transportation Security Administration says it probably won't impose a fine.
-Taken from foxnews.com
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 11:34 am (UTC)I got my bag searched and picked through on my way home from SF because I had a pair of blunted scissors the size of my pinky in them. They let me take them with me, but after a while, the whole thing gets silly.
I mean, as it is, you practically have to strip anyway to get through the metal detectors. Off comes my jacket, my belt, my shoes...I'm all for safety, but the day that they find something in my shoe is the day I laugh like a total wack job.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 11:43 am (UTC)thanks for the warning, all my bookmarks are metal (cos I bend up paper ones) and I woulda been thrown in jail sure without a clue.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 01:52 pm (UTC)And then there's the fact that these almost-strip shows are killing the airports in security costs.
Actually, if the terrorists would stop and think about it, they're already getting us. We're so busy being paranoid we're doig ourselves in -_-;;
If I get arrested for the above statement, I'll keep writing in jail.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 01:53 pm (UTC)I go *headdesk*
Always glad to keep a pal out of jail. If you get arrest as a Bookmark Weilding Pyscho Killer, at least it won't be my fault.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 02:39 pm (UTC)My ex-stepdad was flying with my mom back to Calgary with a sidestop at Vancouver BC. My mom has a few prescription medications and she put them in his luggage without telling him.
Consequences: He spent four hours in handcuffs thinking she was smuggling drugs after being detained at the Vancouver custom's check.
(Now, looking back at it, it's funny... back then... not quite so much.)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 02:44 pm (UTC)Ack. I guess it isn't just my country. That's a shame.
How horrible for your ex-stepdad.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 04:01 pm (UTC)Because, you know, the pathetic-looking blonde dragging her tired butt around on crutches and doped up the wazoo is really such the security risk for some president from a country clear on the other side of the world that no one, up to this point, had ever heard of before.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 05:12 pm (UTC)Declined???? Probably????? they should be apologizing and begging for forgivness and their saying we'll let you off this time... just dont do it again??????????????????????????????
fuckers
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 07:16 pm (UTC)Amen, Stalker, amen.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 05:51 pm (UTC)You know what's sadder is when Bea Arthur gets stopped and searched at Logan Airport for having a pocket knife or something in her pocket. BEA FUCKING ARTHUR.
And what's going on with Yousef Islam (a.k.a. Cat Stevens)??????
Amen sister
Date: 2004-09-22 05:54 pm (UTC)"Oh, I'm sorry, you can get on board our aircraft with a BIC razor, but papier mache is just out of the question!!!"
And they wonder why there are gaps in airport security.