Tom M.

And your "silly answer" is exactly the answer your employer used in the past. Attempt to bring a firearm through the checkpoint, don't get fired, get re-trained.

Combat Medic

But if the threat of bombs being assembled is to be taken seriously then every terminal should be dumped at every airport and every flight in the air should be landed right away to be re-screened.

RichardKenner

I don't think that "taken seriously" is binary ...

N830MH

No, he isn't work for TSA. I think they should be termination from his job. He will get disciplinary action from AFSD.

Batmanuel

New info, the Soldier is a Special Forces SFC (E-7) and works as an instructor at the Special Warfare Center in Fort Bragg.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/us...een-beret.html

I wonder what the circumstances were. He should have known better given his rank and occupation, and he was hundred of miles away from either Fort Bliss or Fort Hood. Was he on leave?

goalie

Both the article you note and this one reference

which imho implies (n.b. implies) that this was a gate check and that the explosives in the carry-on luggage were missed at the security checkpoint

But above and beyond that, the pax is still a moron

Batmanuel

True...sloppy reporting? They probably guessed that since it was inside his carry-on bag at the main checkpoint, he "attempted to board" with it. The news link on the first post mentioned it was discovered during X-ray screening.

Letitride3c

Coincidentally, he is TSA (initials - Trey Scott Atwater)

(Was) assigned as instructor in Special Warfare, trained demolitions expert, elite Green Berets stationed in Afghanistan, etc. - what an embarrassment to others in military uniform, especially to his command at Ft. Bragg, N.C. to say the least.

Surely, it was in "good hands" the whole time - by someone sworn to serve, protect & defend America .... (and, presumably, knew exactly what he was doing or qualified enough to "teach" others what & how to, etc.)

He's a moron and an idiot, even if he simply forgotten about it, as others said .... What's worst, I feel for members of his family - but, give him the benefits of the doubt & he's innocent till proven guilty.

Boggie Dog

Don't know and probably never will but guessing the source of this material was a military weapons storage facility. Which leads me to wonder what kind of protocols are in place that would allow a person to remove something like this undetected from controlled storage.

This incident is much larger than one person trying to board an aircraft with C4. It is a demonstration of poor controls of explosives on a military base, again assuming that was the origination of the material.

chollie

There are some interesting theories floating around about this already.

I'm not clear what a 'false flag' is, but apparently there are folks who don't believe that this guy, with his background, training and current position, could have been dumb enough to do this. They're suggesting it has to be a set-up of some sort.

It certainly is peculiar. Wonder if we'll ever know the truth.

Boggie Dog

I think more is going on than what is being told.

No, I don't think we will ever know the whole story.

Atwater is suppose to be arraigned today. Once it makes it into the legal system there is some hope for public information.

chollie

Would be great if our news media could do a half-decent job of reporting. It makes a huge difference if it was detected at a gate check and not at the checkpoint. Brings up questions like....why did the checkpoint not catch it? Too busy looking for snow globes and cupcakes? - or because he didn't have it then? And no information about his reactions at the time - you'd think that innocent or guilty, he'd deny it was his.

Seems odd that no one who was at the airport at the time has come forward to comment. I can understand that he might want to keep it 'down low' for the sake of his family when he was caught, but you think about TSA's usual over-reactions - groups of TSOs/LEOs surrounding threats like Sharon Cissna and Yukio Miyamae come to mind - and it's hard to believe this went down so quietly that no one noticed or even commented after the news broke about what had gone down.

Very strange. However, good to have TSA's assurances that the public was never in any danger. I don't recall such assurances after the cupcake was seized!

He certainly doesn't fit the profile of some clueless soldier taking a souvenir with him (although I was surprised at the number of comments from folks who claim to use explosives for fishing!)

Boggie Dog

http://www.wbap.com/rssItem.asp?feed...temid=29778483


Had anyone connected this guy to an earlier violation?

danl08

He was on leave, his mother lives in Midland.

there was some conjecture elsewhere that he was carrying a pack that all people in his type of unit would carry at all times. The real question is whether he brought this with him TO Midland and was only caught on the way back (which means TSA missed it the first time) or whether he picked it up while in TX (highly unlikely given what the material was).

chollie

That just seems really unlikely - that he'd knowingly be travelling to and from Midland with it in his pack - unless it was in a pocket/pouch that he never opens. We've all seen posts from folks who get something caught at the checkpoint after weeks/months of having forgotten it was there.

The recent previous incident makes this even more bizarre. You'd think they'd have come down on him like a ton of bricks after the first incident - 'they' being TSA, cops or the military.

Curiouser and curiouser.