HOMELAND SECURITY UPDATE: The System Worked!
A Waupaca woman finds herself in the middle of a major security investigation at Cleveland’s airport.
Kimmy Janke had gone through security. In fact, she was in a secure part of the terminal when she stopped to go to the bathroom before making her connecting flight.
That’s when she found a loaded handgun. . . . A Cleveland police report confirms a fully-loaded .40-caliber pistol was left on top of a toilet paper dispenser.
“A little kid could have grabbed that. The wrong person could have grabbed that. You never know,” Janke said.
We’ve since learned the gun was traced to a federal customs agent.
Customs officials have denied all requests to explain why a highly-trained agent left her gun in the bathroom, claiming there is an internal investigation.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
UPDATE: A reader who requests anonymity writes:
I suspect that the agent that left her pistol on the toilet paper dispenser wears a waistband holster and didn’t want the thing to hit the ground when she dropped trou and possibly get snatched by someone with fast hands in an adjoining stall. Understandable. Do we need to mandate that all plainclothes LE types wear shoulder rigs?
On the Barney Miller series everyone wore very fashionable itty bitty revolvers in waistband holsters except Fish. He, as I recall tended to frequent restrooms frequently and was the only one to use a shoulder holster. I say he, or his writer, was the only one paying attention.
The restroom problem is an issue when carrying concealed. However, we expect federal agents to have figured out what to do about it, particularly in secure areas.
MORE: Reader Matt Green writes:
SOP that I was trained to when using a stall is to put the pistol in the crotch of your pants, both to protect it from the bathroom floor, and prevent you forgetting the weapon. If this person was allowed to retire, they may have been older and not up on current weapons handling training. They may also have been a desk jockey who wasn’t used to wearing a weapon, and didn’t miss it when it was gone. Most street cops and regular pistol carriers would notice right away if their weapon was absent.
You’d think.