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 "Hold it right there, Ahmed! You're not gettin' on that plane until we get a chemical analysis of that powder in your jockstrap!" |
Let's put some real pro's
on the job at airports!
of TheCoolumnists.com
Being a retired Chicago police detective, I always listen to the news of the day with my previous cop experience lurking somewhere in my brain. When I hear that a guy tried to blow up one of our air flights, it gets my attention, pronto!
My wife, Ann, flys often, despite the danger factors of air travel today, saying, “I work for free but I charge for flying.” She's nervous about it as I guess most of us are today.
Anyway, I set about gathering all the facts I could about this most recent incident, then tried to figure out how it could have occurred in the first place.
For one thing, the offender involved in this case had “kinky” written all over him! For those who only think of “kinky” as pertaining to sexual matters--or perhaps the texture of one's hair--please think again. “Kinky” defines a person who is so highly weird, behavior-wise, that I MUST pay very close attention to him.
Good cops seem to have a "sixth sense"
about who's kinky and who isn't. More often than not, it's found
in the more veteran officers who have been working the beat for
many years. I’ve often thought that by the time a good cop
retires, he was really just starting to get into his prime as
being a hard to fool type of person. All this brings me to the
air safety question at hand, and my suggestions for making air
travel safer than it is today.
Here are my suggestions;
Top level political appointees, such as Janet Napolitano, really have no business heading up “homeland security.” Admistration expertise is needed to head any sizeable organization, but surely there are people in our USA who have both administrative experience and can tell “kinky” when they see it because they have actually arrested criminals for many years and are hard to fool. This would also go for the head of the TSA. This person must have these qualities.
After the “exec” jobs are handed
out to all the good politicians by whatever admistration is in
power at the time, we must then get down to hiring a street level
work force–people who have both the “kinky” and
“sixth sense” I speak of here.
Where will we find them? Simple. There's a giant pool of retired
cops from great police departments, men and women who have, over
their long tenure, displayed these traits. While many of these
older cops might have their best hand to hand combat days behind
them, their brains are still wonderful and only more perfected
in their “expertise” after all those years of seasoning.
We can always hire young guys from the local gym to do the hand-to-hand combat stuff–at the direction of the old copper. What we need at each airport entry, ticket counter, baggage and x-ray unit, is an old copper with the savvy I suggested here.
I’d rather refer to these retired cops simply as “the more experienced” cops–and this one factor alone is the key that can defeat most any plan of attack. Our enemy will not be able to predict conduct as they can do today, as this “more experienced cop” moves only when his “kinky and sixth sense” tell him to. This unknown element has worked most successfully in the past leading to hundreds of thousands of arrests.
Some critics may call it “profiling” when you detain all the people with a certain ethnic look and check them out. But when a country is being attacked by Muslim radicals with names like Ali, Muhammad, Abdullah, and they're often tied to places known for training our enemies, then it’s time to strip search the people who fit that description, search their luggage (if any) and check closer everyone else on their flight who might be an accomplice, etc.
Had this at least been done in the most recent case, this guy would not have walked his loaded undies through any x-ray tunnel. He would have been wearing a provided orange jump suit while his loaded jock strap was on its way to the FBI lab. This bum was even on a “watch” list and his wealthy daddy-o told folks his son had gone goofy, etc. So why was this bum allowed to get on that flight without a strip search? Who passed him through? Where’s the “kinky” and “sixth sense”? And let's not forget, where was the communication of the known factors to the guys at the airports involved?
Many of those already hired by TSA at our airports and elsewhere are not the type of workers we need there. Recently, while waiting for my wife's plane to arrive, I posed as an old guy looking for a job at TSA. I spoke to a TSA supervisor, an Asian fellow at LAX airport. I’ll call him “Mr. Dong."
He told me there was no realistic age limits for employment at TSA, and it was quite an easy job. Mr. Dong said all he did was contact his local Asian politician who steered him to getting his current job. He said the pay is good and he gets good health insurance and the job is simple. “I just walk around and I enjoy talking to people anyway, so it’s a good job,”he says.
After a bit more conversing, I learned that Mr. Dong’s previous employment had been as a second cook in a Chinese restaurant for most of his life and that he had absolutely no police or law enforcement prior experience. What does this tell me? Forget the chow-mein. This tells me we must get that politician who got Mr. Dong the gig at TSA out of the employment process. We must get people in there who truly not only have the safety of our air travel at heart, but who will hire ONLY those who know what the hell they’re doing–and then only after a total background check.
Today, like it or not, there are many people
of the Muslim faith working at TSA and while most may not be
radical enemies of the USA, I’d bet that some are, if only
“sympathizers” of one degree or another to the radical
Muslim cause. This type of person simply cannot be in these sensitive
positions at this time in our history. Like it or not, we ARE
still at war! The enemy has been amply identified–and for
every American that I have spoken to, they simply do not care
about “profiling” at this time. They are more concerned
about their safety and that of their loved ones when flying.
The Americans that I’ve spoken to are from all walks of
life, all faiths. Yes, my small survey included Muslim Americans
as well as "Ivan," my Iranian friend that I speak with
ever day on my morning walk in the park. “Ivan” simply
states in his broken English; “Undy, I don’t give shit
for crazz-guys, we must keep mutterf-----‘s off da plane,
yes!”
He said he did not mind being stopped at the airport recently.
He said he has been in the USA since he was 16 and he is now
in his early 60s. His family landed here many years ago in San
Francisco–and he is a true, very colorful American, foul
language and all.
We must face the facts, “profiling” has its place in airport security. My wife is not an angry person, but when TSA checkers take her to the “booth” for a total search of her carry on and her person while guys walk by who look like they could be twin brothers of the 911 terrorists!
This points out that the system is not working very well. Ann would not mind being searched as long as it would give her peace of mind that her flight took every precaution to make sure she comes home alive to her family. But all too often, as Ann takes her seat, the guy sitting next to her was not searched in the least, and he looks just like Osama Bin Laden! Ann flies the white-knuckle flight when this occurs and eyes the coffee pot in first class as a potential weapon to conk on the noggin anyone trying to blow up the flight or break into the pilots’ compartment!
The TSA workers on the x-ray lines leave a lot to be desired–at least in Los Angeles airports that I observe fairly often. For the most part you will see numerous attention violations–everything from a paperback book on the lap of the person assigned to observe the carry-ons going through the x-ray machine–to several of the hand “wand wavers” I call them who slide the magic wand under your armpits and over your crotch only to wave you through anyway.
If they are not busy chatting with each other, they might have you re-enter through the x-ray walkway without your belt, your shoes, and wristwatch. These people MUST be trained to treat their duties with a lot more serious attention. Our lives depend on what they do. I’m scared every time I see the x-ray watcher yawning because he’s bored–or because he tied one on last night and came right from the party to his/her TSA job.
I’m sure his local politician is happy that this person helps turn out the vote for them and that they repay this favor with a “job” for this political hack, but this has got to stop. It’s time for experienced cops to be hired, and. yes, for a few beefs that they strip-searched a VIP who complained. Tough! It’s time to get tough. Take a plane trip in Israel and watch their people check you out on a flight. You will see a marked difference. You may not even like how they treat you but you will at least know that every precaution has been taken to insure a safe flight. This feeling alone makes me overlook any ruffled feathers.
As I write this column, the pol’s are trying to get the okay to put a new guy in charge of the TSA. His face just came on my TV and he’s a black man. It’s nice that President Oboma can give a black man a big job, but all I ask is that regardless of the color of the man's skin for this job, I would demand that he be qualified and know what the hell “kinky” is and that he have a “sixth sense” for knowing who to hire in the TSA and how to supervise them.
In addition to hiring a strong force, he might even pitch the airlines to let all working cops travel free on their flights. This would be a small price to pay for having a professional “first responder” on board should anyone lock themselves in a washroom or worse. Face it, folks, you, the passengers are the real “first responders” in many of these situations before the plane lands, so wouldn’t you want a pro leader on board to take the enemy down?
Sure you do. I know I would. I’m sure
the guy who got dragged out of the plane's bathroom with his
drawers at his knees would have a pro instead of a shaky stewardess
leading the charge! Imagine you’re in the middle of taking
a dumpski and they kick the door in on you! Or, perhaps they
should have dropped the waste tank to see what if anything this
guy really dumped in the toilet? Maybe he really was doing wrong
as in terrorist activity as opposed to just stinking up the plane!
Lastly, hiring real cops for the TSA jobs would get many of these
good cops out of Las Vegas where they work security in the casinos
for lousy money, or stand in banks wearing a monkey suit. Lets
not waste the expertise of these guys, especially now when we
need them at our airports the most!
©2010 by Andy Murcia. The Murcia caricature is ©2003 by Jim Hummel. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Kan. 4, 2010.
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