FliesWay2Much

Our new buddy, Ross, was johnny-on-the-spot defending the TSA. Guess that's a whole lot easier than actually answering questions truthfully and unambiguously.

HMPS

$Aside, a cricketeer's bat is like a concert players instrument. Takes more than money !

Loren Pechtel

Why in the world would TSA drill a bat or even have the capability to do so?

Loren Pechtel

Yeah, that's how it should work.

I wonder why in the world they suspected it, though? I don't think we are getting the whole story--why did they suspect drugs? Could perhaps a drug dog have reacted to the bat? (Say, it was handled by someone who was doing drugs?)

jkhuggins

Oh, I don't know ... but this forum is filled with reports of the utterly ridiculous things that TSA employees have done to passengers or their belongings ...

After awhile, it's hard to tell the difference between the stuff people make up and the real stories ...

alpenrock

DUMB idiots WHO WORKS THERE

jeffrocowboy

not quite, they are replaced fairly often!

often a musical instrument is for life (and the passed onto someone else)

GUWonder

CBP has been drilling into imported/transiting wooden products even when the drug-sniffing dogs don't alert and the x-ray image is consistent with what an ordinary wooden object looks like on an x-ray.

And if you are of non-European ethnicity as well and from the West Indies rather than of just European ethnicities and from Australia, CBP tends to make more of a stink. What is the ethnic background of the West Indian player whose cricket bat was subject to this CBP drilling? Unsurprisingly, the DHS/CBP-targeted individual has non-European ethnic background as well.

At which airport did this happen? Miami? If so, this is even less surprising.

WillCAD

I am constantly surprised and dismayed by the ever-increasing depths of stupidity reached by my government and its ignorant, uneducated, paranoid employees.

My guess is that this was probably CBP. There must have been an agent trying to get his mug on Border Wars for finding that Big Catch (or Big Cache, as it were). I have watched them disassemble entire vehicles on that show, but they only air the successes. I often wonder how often they disassemble a vehicle and find nothing at all? I'm sure they are immune from any kind of action for their wonton destruction of private property, and I'll bet that their victim, er, suspect, has to foot the bill for reassembling the vehicle out of pocket.

It's nice when they stop the big drug and cash shipments and catch human smugglers, but the damage they do to innocent people is becoming more trouble than the results are worth.

halls120

When they do, they are supposed to pay for all damages. When the CG drills into a boat and finds no drugs, their boarding teams are supposed to leave behind a claims form. And when they are submitted, the CG pays the claim without question.

chitownjeff

Maybe the agent in question was English? (cricket joke there)

GUWonder

If so, then that (bat destruction) is not cricket.

AS MHT

But who can trust foreign security to keep an aircraft safe?? It's much better for us to keep all those dangerous foreign flyers out of our airspace and away from our biggest and most targeted cities! 'Murika!

FlyingHoustonian

Of course, why do you seem vexed by that?
They have all sorts of tools to dismantle, x-ray, remove, destroy, and test various objects.

ONTRandy

I was in law enforcement for 11 years, part of that interdiction. When we kicked your door, inspected the inside of car seats, or otherwise damaged stuff and didn't find anything, we were on the hook for replacement. Everyone was aware of that and nobody wanted their name associated with lots of damaged stuff and little found stuff.

When we did find what we were looking for, it was seized (usually for a long time) and someone else dealt with any claims that may have arisen from the search, so I can't speak to that. Though in my opinion, if things were found it ought to be a considered a cost of doing business as a criminal.