“Minutes before a gunman opened fire in a Los Angeles International Airport terminal last fall, killing a security screener and wounding three other people, the two armed officers assigned to the area left for breaks without informing a dispatcher as required,” the AP reports. In other words, they left the airport unprotected. “When the shooting started, the two officials say one of the armed officers assigned to the terminal was at or just outside an adjacent terminal. One of the officials said the officer was on a bathroom break and the other foot-beat officer was in a vehicle on the tarmac outside Terminal 3, headed for a meal break.” And none of the passengers or visitors in the terminal were armed. As far as we know. Aside from Paul Ciancia, who used his rifle to kill a TSA guard and proceed through the airport unopposed. The police union rep reckons “it could have been a lot worse.” What’s more . . .
Airport police union chief Marshall McClain said the two officers assigned to Terminal 3 still were in position to quickly respond to the shooting. He said he’d spoken with both and confirmed one was “going to the restroom or coming back from the restroom” and the other was headed out on a meal break but still within his patrol area.
“He hadn’t gone on break yet. He was going to go on break,” McClain said. What typically happens is, “if you’re going to go on a lunch break, you get to your location and you tell them that you’re there.” Officers often do this in order to maximize their lunch break so they don’t lose time while traveling.”
How reassuring. And yet, somehow, I don’t believe it’s true. I’d like to see the airport’s official break policies and security footage confirming these “facts.”
It’s too bad this didn’t go down in Bergstrom International, Austin, or any of the other airports where the public’s “allowed” to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms up to the security checkpoint. Different outcome? Maybe. I bet the family of the slain TSA agent would have preferred his odds in the Lone Star State.
“Lax” security indeed.
+1
High fives were given all around with that headline
Methinks they’re looking for a politcal scapegoat here.
The problem wasn’t that two armed officers had to eat and take a leak.The problem is that in California, the bad guy has civil rights the taxpaying citizen does not.And they’d rather shovel the poop down the paygrades then clean it up.
No issues with deadbeat union Polizei screwing off (per SOP) on the taxpayer dime?
They can’t eat airport food? What?
I’ve noticed that coverage of that shooting always mentions that other people were wounded, but doesn’t say who the were. Were they also TSA employees, or just random TSA victims with unusually bad luck?
But I thought Tom Daschle told us “You can’t professionalize unless you federalize” and so we did. And we got screwed again by a lying politician.
Not at all! How could we possibly have professional child molesters without federalization?
That would be organized religion which is similar to federalization in terms of power and bureaucracy.
You can carry all the way to security in Arizona as well and if I’m not going through security I do.
Same at a lot of airports. It’s discomforting when the government dictates when responsible concealed carry people may no longer protect themselves or others around them, even though the police and government CAN’T!
Boy, I wish I could call my boss from the diner to say that I was beginning my lunch. Do I have to call as soon as I sit down or can I wait until my food hits the table?
Heck, why not wait until you’ve actually finished eating and then call?
I’ve always had very strong pro-lunch beliefs. Lunch begins at digestion!
And it is silence from MDA/MAIG . . .
So the police were literally caught with their pants down…
FTW !!
These things don’t ever happen in places where law abiding, concealed carry permit holders, could have stopped the “bad guy” because “bad guys” are smart enough to avoid those places on purpose. After all they might get shot.
I’ve basically stopped going to my bank’s branch location because, suddenly and for no reason I can see, 3 months ago a sign went up on the door. “No Guns On Premises.” Its like labeling the place, “Hey! Easy Target!”
P.S.: No, there are no guards at the bank, and the lobby has no bullet proof glass installations. Its like a posh decorated living room… Where people regularly hand over hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Surveillance cameras and insurance. They don’t care if some employee or customer blood is spilled – cost of doing business.
Although, I think most criminals would not consider banks to be “easy targets.”
I’m not really trying to say that it is an easy target. But when signs like this start appearing it just seems very ominous.
Agreed. They’re advertising themselves as victims.
Stay FAR away from their ATM. Especially at night.
Banks are most definitely soft targets. I blog crime every day happening all over the state of Pa. and (it appears) in almost equal numbers, that banks are robbed with a simple note. It would great to have some hard stats on the breakdown of unarmed vs armed robberies. Bottom line…banks are hit every day with nothing more than pen and paper.
Not sure where the story was at, but US Bank has a no guns policy, but they don’t put signs up.
So a customer got a letter from them because the bank knew he was carrying.
I carry in there all the time in the bank, I just keep it covered by my shirt in a Sticky Holster, carrying appendix, a Sig P229 in .40
I’m not surrendering my safety because someone in some main office in Tempe. AZ says I can’t protect myself in their bank! They can kiss my a$$
In what sane, functioning , REAL business is everybody in a certain department(in this case security) allowed to all take breaks at the same time, leaving the post unmanned?
For instance, in the post office the customer service personnel don’t stampede away for break together. At least one is left there to keep serving the public. Even as high school lifeguards we understood this.At LAX, it looks like nobody’s minding the store.
Sounds like a lapse of leadership. Whatever became of those in charge of Pearl Harbor?
Both eventually court martialled, if i remember correctly. (Too lazy to Google)
you are correct they were made scapegoats. Intel had info they didn’t and if they had known would have caused them to at least increased the alert status or whatever they called it back then. Conspiracy theorists also claim Whitehouse knew in advance and did nothing to get us into the war. The families of the two men have been fighting to have their names cleared for decades.
I can never imagine the government lying to the american people.
The Union controls how breaks are handled. If a supervisor tried to delay one break until the other person returned the Union would be all over them like white on rice. The supervisors have no authority over the union. This is the federal government, controlled by union.
In those other cases,there’s money to be made. Here there was no money at stake — just the lives of a few random people.
when seconds count, the police are on the crapper. Please politely tell the shooter to wait 10 minutes for police to arrive.
+1
And when they come, they’re pulling up their pants and there’s TP hanging off their shoe….
Try to get that image out of your mind.
(I’m not talking about you, Roscoe at the NSA, how’s the family by the way?)
When seconds count, mall security is busy loading up it’s alimentary canal at one end or unloading it at the other.
But Shannon Watts feels safe in LAX because at least she knows there is not a person with a loaded weapon standing next to her. Apparently logic is always trumped by “feelings” in demacrat controlled states.
If the cops don’t abuse or kill you; they’ll leave to answer a call of nature to let a homicidal maniac abuse or kill you.
For those that are voluntarily defenseless because the local badged wolves are “supposed” to protect you;(actually, they don’t, by USSC determination) good luck with that.
“…it could have been worse…”
Am I supposed to be happy that only one guy went in and shot things up because 3 or 4 guys with many rounds of ammo, explosive devices, biological agents, etc. didn’t take advantage of the lax security?
Ok, all the stuff about “getting caught with your pants down” is amusing in a macabre manner. It’s another thing entirely when you’re in the process of dropping an epic log, dropping off the kids at the pool, 10-6 on the brown, etc. Murphy’s law kicks in, and dispatch calls over the radio with some sort of urgent clusterfvck.
Not only does dispatch want to know where you are (in the friggin crapper!), but sometimes they even want to know what exactly your doing (taking care of important paperwork), and what your ETA is. Then your stuck furiously wiping and clipping as your un-discombobulate your gun belt, radio, baton, belts clips, etc. only to find yourself on-scene with a news chopper overhead and your damn zipper is still down.
Of course, that’s never happened to me (this week), but it can happen.
This is not news, Its another Hoax. The Obama administration will stop at nothing. The only real shootings in the last 7 were the middle school in Democratic stronghold of New Mexico and the other Democrat playground High school in Colorado. All other have Obama’s fingerprints.
Ooook den.