I think it's probably a bit difficult to get a hold of all the necessary personnel on Christmas day at 5pm.

As for the supervisor, I'm going to guess he was on Air Force One. This agent was part of the presidential detail, so presumably the rest of the detail was on AF1.

Assuming there's actually a permanent liasion officer assigned to the Maryland police, does anyone think he's working Christmas day?

So let's cut to the scene on Tuesday...

You're the cop who has to be on duty at the BWI airport on Christmas. By default that means you're a pretty junior officer (or on your commander's ****-list), since senior officers have managed to take the day off. Do you...

a) pick up the phone and call your lieutenant or captain so that they can interrupt their holiday in order to track down Secret Service to verify this guy's identity, just so you can let a federal agent board a flight to DFW.

b) simply do nothing to help this guy. Nobody ever got fired (especially in an union shop like the Police Department) by following the written rules. The written rules say an airline can refuse to carry a passenger at their discretion. The policeman on the spot merely agree that he can't verify the identity and let the airline refuse to seat him.

Which do you think is the choice most police will make?

[This message has been edited by Plato90s (edited 12-27-2001).]