"At approximately 5:45 a.m. PDT, Transportation Security Administration officers at Palm Springs International Airport detected a suspicious item while X-ray screening a passenger's carry-on bag. For the safety of the travelers, the terminal has been evacuated and the checkpoint is closed."
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UPDATE: 10:30 a.m.: TSA has confirmed that the suspicious item was successfully destroyed, without incident.
TSA Public Affairs Manager Nico Melendez says the explosive ordnance disposal team from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department used a water cannon to "disrupt" the bag the item was in.
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However-- it's important to note that the item did not turn out to be anything bad.
"The contents of the bag were determined to be routine items that appeared suspicious on the X-ray image," Melendez said. "At approximately 10:00 a.m. the terminal, ticketing lobby and surrounding areas were given the all clear and checkpoint screening resumed."
No planes moved for 4.5 hours? I wonder what that cost?
1-2-3 Out of an abundance of caution.........
I would like to see these "evacuations" at airports checked for how often they do them. I think they could be excuses for "drills" when the opportunity presents because some times under similar circumstances they do not evacuate. I would like to see if this is something that is being done at airports every XXX often. Any thoughts?
I hope the passenger seeks legal counsel and uses every means at his disposal to extract compensation from TSA, whatever department had the robot, and the fire department.
Destruction of non-threatening non-harmful personal property out of "abundance of caution" is unacceptable.
From what I can see, one Delta and two United flights were cancelled, an AA and Alaska flight was delayed significantly, and everything else was unaffected.
Our founding fathers would be ashamed of what this country has become. It would be comical if it were not so sad and/or infuriating. TSA's nonsense at it's worse, or best if you are TSA fan.
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Originally Posted by studentff
I hope the passenger seeks legal counsel and uses every means at his disposal to extract compensation from TSA, whatever department had the robot, and the fire department.
Destruction of non-threatening non-harmful personal property out of "abundance of caution" is unacceptable.
If screeners cannot yet identify something that really is not suspicious (whatever that means), and with their wild imagination they think they see something that may go boom, why not just ask the passenger what they may have in that bag?
After the passenger explains to the screener what may appear as an item that may go boom, maybe the screener then can make sense of what they are seeing.
I also think the boys are anxious to play with all their toys that our tax dollars have bought to fight terrorism. With no real bombs ever found, the stuff just sits around collecting dust. I think they get really giddy when they have a chance to break out all the neat stuff at their disposal.
If screeners cannot yet identify something that really is not suspicious (whatever that means), and with their wild imagination they think they see something that may go boom, why not just ask the passenger what they may have in that bag?
Because the passenger's response has no relevance to the problem at hand.
The passenger will always respond with some plausible explanation of what the item is. Even in the extremely rare case where the item was, in fact, a bomb, the passenger would respond with some plausible explanation. Therefore, the passenger's response offers no useful information to the TSO.
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Yeah, that was absolutely no reason why they evacuated from the terminal. They didn't do it anything wrong. They should have checked the suspicious bags and not try to caused security breach. They should have learn some lesson to followed the rules. No more mistakes.
Our founding fathers would be ashamed of what this country has become. It would be comical if it were not so sad and/or infuriating. TSA's nonsense at it's worse, or best if you are TSA fan.
Our founding fathers would be amazed and bewildered by what this country has become. None of them even had electricity and communications took months to cross the Atlantic.
They would probably be as confused and lost as all the other politicians in this country. (Sorry for the editorial.)
If screeners cannot yet identify something that really is not suspicious (whatever that means), and with their wild imagination they think they see something that may go boom, why not just ask the passenger what they may have in that bag?
After the passenger explains to the screener what may appear as an item that may go boom, maybe the screener then can make sense of what they are seeing.
An abundance of common sense is not in the TSA handbook.
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A few snippets and my two hockey pucks.....
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TSA tells KPSP Local 2 they are proud of the way local agents handled Friday's scare, and credit a 9 year veteran of the agency with spotting the anomaly in the x-ray. They say this whole thing is a great learning experience for everyone involved.
So does that mean an 8 year or 10 year TSA veteran is not qualified? Yeah, a great learning experience for everyone involved except the passenger
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A man in his early 20s was going through the checkpoint when TSA's x-ray detected something that looked highly suspicious. PSP's Nolan thinks it was extremely questionable, and says TSA took all the right precautionary measures.
TSA took the man's duffle bag and detained him for questioning. There were communication problems with the man because he had an accent, but the TSA did not tell us what kind of accent.
Was it a brown accent by any chance?
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TSA Public Affairs Manager Nico Melendez says the explosive ordnance disposal team from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department used a water cannon to "disrupt" the bag the item was in.
However-- it's important to note that the item did not turn out to be anything bad.
"The contents of the bag were determined to be routine items that appeared suspicious on the X-ray image," Melendez said. "At approximately 10:00 a.m. the terminal, ticketing lobby and surrounding areas were given the all clear and checkpoint screening resumed."
WOLF, WOLF, WOLF and my question to Mr. Melendez-if the item "did not turn out to be anything bad", would you care to post the x-ray image and/or tell us what it was?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by goalie
A few snippets and my two hockey pucks.....
So does that mean an 8 year or 10 year TSA veteran is not qualified? Yeah, a great learning experience for everyone involved except the passenger
Was it a brown accent by any chance?
WOLF, WOLF, WOLF and my question to Mr. Melendez-if the item "did not turn out to be anything bad", would you care to post the x-ray image and/or tell us what it was?
I'm sure that'll be SSI. After all, if The Terrorists knew what sorts of items caused false positives that completely disrupted traffic in an airport for several hours, they'd be intentionally causing such false positives all the time - you know, hundreds per day, since there are so many Terrorists operating with impunity in the United States - and air travel as we know it would come to a screeching halt.
I'm sure that'll be SSI. After all, if The Terrorists knew what sorts of items caused false positives that completely disrupted traffic in an airport for several hours, they'd be intentionally causing such false positives all the time - you know, hundreds per day, since there are so many Terrorists operating with impunity in the United States - and air travel as we know it would come to a screeching halt.
I'm sure they have already figured out that if you just walked around a terminal with a water bottle full of hydrated pureed seaweed and a little syringe to spray it, every EDT machine in the zip code would go crazy. Or they could just paint a little watercolor stripe on random bags. Watercolor manufacturers add glycerol to keep the paints from drying too fast. Glycerol, which is the proper name for glycerine will trigger an EDT machine.
I would like to see these "evacuations" at airports checked for how often they do them. I think they could be excuses for "drills" when the opportunity presents because some times under similar circumstances they do not evacuate. I would like to see if this is something that is being done at airports every XXX often. Any thoughts? 
is unacceptable.
