Teacher arrested for carrying bookmark

[CornField]

http://www.local6.com/news/3738885/detail.html

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 8.5-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 said it probably won't impose a fine.

Harrington said she'll never again carry her bookmark into an airport.

[Radius]

1. Guess they thought it was a BlackJack.

Should have just taken it and left the poor woman alone.

[fugue]

2. They used to just take it and give it back to you at the other end

I bought my sister a camping knife when we were on a trip in the UK in 1987. She never goes with enough luggage to check (on the way to the UK on that trip, everything she checked was lost and so she never did again), so she had the knife on her when she went to fly home. The security people took it from her but gave it back when she landed in Ohio.

Seems a completely rational way to handle it to me.

[Radius]

3. Exactly

Now you can just fedex stuff thet you can't carry. I forgot and realized I had a pocket knife I've had for many years and just mailed it home.

They should have let the woman do that.

[Roland99]

4. Hmm...guess I'll sheath mine before flying next week

[goddess40]

5. everythings a weapon - if you want it to be

break a pop can in half, or a CD - what idiots

[napi21]

15. THANKS!! I've been saying this forever! One of the most leathal

weapons I know of is a woman's high heeled shoes! You know, the spikes! I used to wear them, and the cops even advised that a woman use that spike as a means of defense. Wonder how many times someone has been forbidden to wear her shoes onto the plane?

I've heard comments about someone could sharpen one edge of a credit card and actually have a fairly sharp knife!

I don't fault the screeners. I'm sure they're only doing what they've been told to do. I fault the leaders iin the Homeland Security Dept. They don't know what to do, so they're throwing ideas up against the wall to see what sticks.

[Tight_rope]

31. Damn...I guess I could stab someone with a straw too...PURE IDIOTS!

[maxsolomon]

6. they HAD to arrest her or she'd get ideas

most teachers are union members, therefore they are liberals, therefore they are terror loving america haters.

they must be made an example of.

[toopers]

13. Of course, all the TSA employees are government employees,

and, therefore union members also. They arrested one of their own.

[oasis]

40. TSA employees are not union members. There was a "debate" about it

during the 2002 midterm eletions. Chimpy had to be given the authrity to move employees around as he pleased for national security reasons. It's written into the Homeland Security bill so that Chimpy can move employees hither and tither and hire and fire them without the mean 'ol union looking over his shoulder.


Senators could either side with the unions or with national defense. :eyes:

[DBoon]

19. and the NEA really is a terrorist organization

the Secretary of Education even said so.

[PermanentRevolution]

27. Teachers, librarians, bookstore employees...

Anyone who spends that much time around books is bound to pick up some bad ideas. Burn 'em all, I say! If Bush don't need no stinking books, neither do the rest of us!

[leesa]

7. She could also probably have rendered someone unconscious with her

book. How stupid!

[Tight_rope]

32. Don't give them any ideas...They may start banning books!...

[NYC Liberal]

8. As Carlin once said...

You could probably kill a guy with the Sunday NY Times, if you wanted to. Or strangle someone if you have really big hands.

[yellowcanine]

9. Not to give TSA any ideas but a leather belt + buckle is more of a weapon

than some little 8 inch leather bookmark. I haven't heard of TSA relieving anyone of their belts yet. These people are nuts.

[thecrow]

22. Give 'em some more time, yellowcanine!

In a few years we'll all be flying naked.
Gosh, that could be fun, somewhat!

[Tight_rope]

33. "In a few years we'll all be flying naked."...that would be scary for many

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. In Homeland Bizarro World nail clippers are also concealed weapons.

[saigon68]

23. Homeland Bizarro World

They used to call the place AMERIKA until the FASCISTS stole the election in the year 2000

[roguevalley]

11. we're all now officially insane.

[coreystone]

12. Let's be sure to register everyone with martial arts and trained ....

boxers, etc. I am quite sure that they would require nothing that the FAA, Homeland Security, or, any other "anti-terrorist" bureaucratic Federal agency would deem as being a "threat" to the American people. If I were a "terrorist", that's the training which I would include.

One does not need to possess "implements" of threat to indeed invoke it.

YES!! This really can't get quite preposterous!!

[screembloodymurder]

14. Mark my words.

They are targeting teachers.

[lazarus]

16. Remember Rod Paige?

CNN.com - Paige calls NEA 'terrorist organization' - Feb. 23, 2004

[CornField]

17. I believe you. Last time * came to Cedar Rapids, 2 teachers were arrested

There were 100s of protestors there. The two were approached and told they were standing in the wrong spot. When they asked where they should be standing, they were cuffed and hauled off.

[buycitgo]

21. when was this? my sister lives there, and probably can get

inside info on this

pls post some details, if you can

[screembloodymurder]

24. My wife is a teacher.

One of us seems to be searched before every flight. It's outrageous.

[JanMichael]

18. Just shows that they don't IQ test in TIA. Or maybe they do, they just...

...hire those with the lowest...

[Ms. Clio]

20. Quick, call the feds, I found where these dangerous weapons are sold!

And they are readily available to any terrorist who wants one!

[flordehinojos]

25. she should sue the hell out of the tampa airport screeners!

[MUSTANG_2004]

29. They pulled her

But why'd the police arrest her? You'd hope they'd show some judgment.

[indepat]

26. Mix a little officiousness with complete lack of common sense and judgment

and what do you get other than one absurdity followed by another?

[DemBones DemBones]

28. What stupidity! I just heard on television that

airline passengers will soon be required to remove their coats -- including suit jackets, warmup jackets, etc., apparently before going through the scanner. I thought for years that our U.S. security was too lax but they've gone to the opposite extreme.

Women, beware! Don't go to the airport wearing a sweatsuit or screeners may make you stand there in your bra.

:eyes:

How many hijackers have screeners caught since Sept. 11, 2001???

[nemo137]

30. My granddad has the kind of bookmark they're talking about

and I have to admit, when I first saw them lying around, I wondered why my grandfather had blackjacks on his desk. (Really, there for holding books open while you type from them.) It's an entirely reasonable assumption, based the the fact that you could knock someone out with one fairly easily, and it just plain looks like a blackjack. The handcuffing and police car bit may have been over the top, but at least they have the common sense to back down.

[Tight_rope]

34. This is so FUCKING RIDICULOUS...People will stop flying

because of all the damn harassment. I know I use to fly all the time...but not anymore.

[mike_c]

36. I already have....

I used to fly to meetings or for personal travel five or six times a year. I don't anymore-- I resist air travel to the point that I haven't flown in nearly two years. Air travel sucks.

[Swamp Rat]

35. Well, I guess folks won't be flying as much after these incidents keep

piling up. If I can drive, take a boat, or ride a bicycle to my destination I will. I hope this and other incidents like it damages the airlines to the point they have to re-evaluate security personnel.

Fuck Tampa! I'll NEVER go there. You hear that Jeb? I have been boycotting your state since 2000, and this just adds to my initiative.

[loudsue]

37. All of this hooplah because of 19 men....19 hijackers.

Amerika, Amerika. God has shed His grace from thee.

But 19 hijackers, in the hands of the neocons and their media and war machines, is enough to turn our country into the Nazi Nation they always dreamed of.

WHEN is this nation going to wake up from this??

:kick::kick::kick:

[Swamp Rat]

38. America needs the proverbial smack on the nose with the newspaper.

:spank:

[loudsue]

41. Swamp_Rat....those pictures in your sig line just kill me.

You're a fairly prolific poster, and I see those pictures from thread to thread. And EVERY time I see them, I feel like someone just kicked me in the stomach. The pictures say what words can't.

I want our troops home NOW!!!!

:kick::kick::kick::kick:

[Swamp Rat]

42. EXACTLY!

These photos represent such a profound feeling inside me that words fail.

BRING BACK THE TROOPS NOW!!!

[coreystone]

39. How about ripping the plastic cups that the flight attendants .....

give their passengers. They could be just as potentially dangerous as the "box cutters".