Cecilia Beaman is a 57-year-old grandmother, a middle school principal and part-time terrorist. She was busted by the TSA for attempting to sneak a 5 1/2 inch bread knife with a rounded tip and a serrated blade onto an airplane.
Luckily, the TSA foiled Granny’s hijacking attempt.
From KOMOTV:
On the trip home, screeners with the Transportation Security Administration at Los Angeles International Airport found it deep in the outside pocket of a carry-on cooler. Beaman apologized and told them it was a mistake.“You’ve committed a felony,” Beaman says a security screener announced. “And you’re considered a terrorist.”
Beaman says she was told her name would go on a terrorist watch-list and that she would have to pay a $500 fine.
…
She says screeners refused to give her paperwork or documentation of her violation, documentation of the pending fine, or a copy of the photograph of the knife.“They said ‘no’ and they said it’s a national security issue. And I said what about my constitutional rights? And they said ‘not at this point … you don’t have any’.”
That’s right, Granny. You’re busted, You have no rights. That’s what you get for trying to hijack a plane with a bread knife. By the way, using the 37 school children you were “escorting” as a cover for your terrorist ways just isn’t right. —MEGHANN MARCO
‘This Is Not Right’ [KOMOTV]
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Glad I didn’t get this treatment when I got “busted” trying to “hijack” a plane with my souvenir nail clippers I forgot I owned during the screening process.
The weird thing about this story: following a Google search, the story’s actually two years old, and apparently hasn’t been updated with new info in these past two years.
Eample:
Editor’s note: This archive story was originally published…
So why republish this now? Also: Zero-Tolerance payback’s a bitch.
Wow.
The exact thing happend to me, but with far less dire consequences. I was going on a one day trip for a job interview from Greensboro, NC to Washington, DC (Reagan). I took my computer bag with me, it usually goes back and forth to work with me. I thought I inspected it and removed any offending materials. I got to the airport screening and they pulled me aside. They looked in my bag, and I too had a butter knife, similar to what was described, except maybe longer. The Agent then TOLD ME I COULD HAVE IT. I said I didn’t need it and it was perfectly OK for her to take it. Then she JOKED – “You may need it to butter your bread.” I was flabbergasted, left, and threw the knife away in the nearest trash receptacle. I was certain the security at Reagan would not have been so understanding. Mind you, this was in APRIL 2002.
Way to go grandma……Butter them to death
@kelmeister
Whether it is from two minutes or two days, it still shows how ridiculous the TSA’s policy is. She should have gotten at least some kind of appeal. I’m not saying we should let people get away with trying to take ‘dangerous’ objects onto a plane, but it seems like the TSA is now in paranoia overdrive.
What are the circumstances that lead to someone putting a bread knife in their pocket?
-Found on the ground, lucky bread knife?
-You are a bread critic traveling to your next swanky bread junket?
-You fear that you will be attacked by giant man-eating loaves of bread?
-You heard packing a bread knife gives you ‘street cred.’
Hmm.
Strange, I heard this story on the radio a couple days ago. I wonder if something similar happened recently.
@faust1200: On the trip home, screeners with the Transportation Security Administration at Los Angeles International Airport found it deep in the outside pocket of a carry-on cooler.
I believe that the need to start holding a common sense class for the TSA agents.
According to the TSA website, rounded nosed butter knives are allowable carry on items. Must be a slow news day.
@MaximuM_MayheM:
oops, I meant “two years”, not “two days”
@faust1200: I used to carry a bread knife around with me to open my mailbox after I lost the key.
@ faust1200
“On the trip home, screeners with the Transportation Security Administration at Los Angeles International Airport found it deep in the outside pocket of a carry-on cooler. Beaman apologized and told them it was a mistake.”
Journalism may not be perfect, but it still does help to read the story.
I’m sorry, but bread knives are pretty damn long. The Grandmother is asking for it. Hasn’t she heard of sliced bread!!!
Here’s how a bread knife looks like btw:
[www.amazon.com]
@faust1200: It clearly states that she had it deep in a pocket of her carry-on cooler.
@Dec: Oh snap!
I shot a man with a butter knife once, just to watch him bleed.
@MaximuM_MayheM:
I made my comment because this isn’t the first place I’ve read this story in the last few days. It’s strange that it’s popping up all over the place (including MSM) and there’s nothing indictating that the incident is two years old, or supplying an update as to what’s happened since. Was she fined? Was it quietly worked out?
And I agree it was a total overraction on the TSA’s part: they couldn’t have tossed it in the box with all the 4oz containers of shampoo and sent her on her way? But I also love the juicy irony of a school principal feeling the icy sting of weapons paranoia.
I accidentally did this in 2000 with a steak knife flying from Thailand to India. They took the knife, and said I could get it in India. I didn’t care, but they insisted, so when i got to India and was waiting for my baggage, there was a guy walking around the carousel saying “I have somebody’s knife. Who’s knife is it?” I claimed it, and he was very happy. It was all rather humorous. Can’t imagine it would work that way these days.
/miss the good ol’ days
@Black Bellamy: When I hear that whistle blown’, I butter my bread and cry.
The TSA is full of rejects that can’t get jobs as mall security. Of course they get very self-important when they get to use terms like “National Security”. Deep down they know they’re working shitty, dead-end jobs and that they aren’t qualified to do anything more skilled than asking if someone would like fries with that.
I really have a hard time feeling sympathy for her. If you know you’re getting on a plane, and you know what items you can and cannot bring on a plane, is it so hard to check and make sure that you’re not carrying any of those items (either accidentally or on purpose) BEFORE you leave for the airport?
I’m not saying the TSA isn’t oppressive or paranoid, or defending their “right” to give Grannies a FCBS when they accidentally bring knitting needles on the plane, but you have to put some responsibility on the passenger.
Steven Levitt, the Freakonomics author, was in a similar situation with a much different outcome.
[www.freakonomics.com]
When sliced bread is outlawed, only outlaws will have bread knives.
Oh that’s why the securty level went orange.
I believe the reason we haven’t heard anything about this lady or her case since the incident is because she is now being held in Gitmo with the other dangerous terrorists.
I can just picture her now. Knitting prayer rugs for the other detainees.
@faust1200: Get back to the forums, you’ve been told!
This is just what happens when you have incompetent employees who flunk out of MCState. They are probably too stupid to know the trouble they’ve caused this poor woman, and too lazy to care.
@Black Bellamy: I doubt even Johnny Cash can manage to shoot someone with a knife … unless he were to shoot it out of a cannon.
Then again, who knows what kid of stuff ghosts can do these days?
@MercuryPDX: I guess you never forget you put something somewhere? Better get that memory checked out — perfect memories are scientifically fascinating these days.
Overzealous TSA agent.
That’s what it boils down to being.
While they likely followed procedure (confiscating the item, taking a photograph, writing a report, collecting her information) they certainly didn’t do it very well.
Certainly they’re not going to give her a report on the spot any more than a police officer gives you a police report on the spot. Number, maybe. Report? No.
But the case must first be reviewed by a United States Attorney before charges (including fines) can be leveled. And she DOES get a day in court…if she wants one.
Give it up for overzealous, power-hungry TSA agents ruining the good name of all the others who just want to stop terrorists.
(FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked for the Department of Homeland Security as an intern. I do not have any other connections to the TSA.)
The thing I don’t get about all these ridiculous stories is that people don’t realize that if someone wants to hijack a plane they’re going to hijack a plane regardless of what rules are in place about what you can and can’t bring on a plane. All these ridiculous rules are just making it inconvenient for all the other travelers.
For instance, I was coming back from Vegas a few months ago and without thinking about it packed a souvenir beer glass that I got there in my carry on and that made it through security fine, so what’s to stop someone from just bringing on a glass, breaking it, and stabbing people with it? People can make weapons out of anything so all these rules are just basically wasting time and money.
If you’re not supposed to bring it on a plane, DO NOT BRING IT ON THE PLANE.
That means knives, grandma. I don’t care how innocent you are. DO NOT BRING IT ON THE PLANE.
Simple rules people. Simple rules. Follow them. They aren’t going to give you special treatment.
This is why we need to institute “racial” profiling.
Random Cavity serches for everyone!!! YAY
Bend over granny and grab your socks. Prepare for a roggering of a lifetime.
@Fuzz: I was presented with a similar option while returning from Korea to LAX when I was ~15 years old.
When departing Incheon, I was told that my totally rad souvenir gun-shaped cigarette lighter (it even had a holster!) would need to fly in the cargo hold, and that it would be waiting with the rest of our luggage.
Unfortunately, US customs pulled my mother and I aside in LA to inform us that I could not have the lighter because it didn’t have the orange-tipped barrel required in the US for all replica firearms.
Note that I certainly didn’t smoke at that age, and had no use for the thing. It was just so amazingly cool. I was convinced it would help me be a secret agent or something.
I got the classic options – forfeit the item or have it seized. Being mildly upset with the whole situation (and a bit of a brat) I opted to have them seize it. Since then, I’ve always been a bit bitter towards customs agents, and airport security in general.
Bonus: I got to keep the holster, which has served as a constant and unfulfilling reminder of what could have been.
@aishel: I > U
@HeySuburbia: Exactly – all these rules are just making it harder for normal travelers. If you wanted to hijack a plane, you’d find a way to do it, no matter what.
How was the liquid explosives terror plot stopped? Wasn’t it intelligence and surveillance? The explosives weren’t found at a security checkpoint, were they?
And “3 oz or less…in clear ziploc baggies”? Do you really think that would prevent someone from sneaking on liquid explosives if they really wanted to?
Give me a real story, about a real terrorist, getting stopped at a security checkpoint, then maybe I’ll start to believe all these rules serve a purpose…
@kelmeister:
“So why republish this now? Also: Zero-Tolerance payback’s a bitch.”
It’s a shame that the people calling for Zero-Tolerance with crime, security, and our schools so rarely feel the full brunt of it.
On a mostly related noted,
I find it insanely humorous that scissors…sharp, pointy scissors, with a length up to (some number) inches (that I’m too lazy to look up) are allowed. And yet, seemingly, any sort of other sharp implement, or heaven for bid, a tiny swiss army knife (who’s blade could easily be shorter than the length of scissors allowed) is superbly against the rules.
You can stab someone just as easily with scissors.
Well, I feel safer.
I’ve accidentally taken my Utili-key (which is always on my keychain) onto airplanes too many times; I always forget. When opened, it’s around 5 inches long. I wonder how long it’ll be until keys are banned from airplanes, too.
@ alpha
Exactly. Why have scissors that are up to four inches in length be OK? You could do WAY more harm with those than with a lot of the other stuff they ban.
On another note, I find it very funny that at [www.tsa.gov]
they make it a point to say that “toy transformer robots” are OK to be carried on the plane. The even funnier thing is that they list transformers under “special needs devices.”
why not have an old lady act as the weapon mule until she gets on the plane and then she can hand off the weapon to the hijacker?
if she gets caught she can plead ignorance and post her story to Consumerist. ;p
Hey guys, sometimes shit happens. Two years ago, I was going through airport security with my backpack and I forgot to remove my Swiss Army knife. The TSA folks were cool about it and gave me three options:
1. Leave it and proceed to my flight.
2. Go back to the counter and check my backpack.
3. use the USPS Priority Mail service outside the gate to mail the item back to my home.
Since the item had sentimental value, I selected options 3.
I think the key point in dealing with TSA is: Don’t cop an attitude!!!
The incident happened two years ago, there’s been no follow-up, it should be obvious that the passenger wasn’t actually fined or added to any watch list. It was just some sadistic screener playing head games with a passenger.
Two separate airport employees (check-in agent and a screener) told a friend of mine on one trip that he was going to be strip-searched. That’s how they keep themselves entertained, apparently — arbitrarily trying to scare passengers. In a sane country, people like that would be fired.
When I would walk through the security checkpoint at the airport in my USMC uniform I would always be hassled because I was obviously a danger to everyone on the plane.
@bostonmike:
Uh, buddy, that’s not how it works. My mother in law is a TSA screener. It’s not “for fun”. They do it based on requirements that have to be met.
Must be a stolen from Country Kitchen Buffett….
@HeySuburbia:
Well, next thing you know, they’re going to start making Transformers that transform into bread knives, and then we’re all doomed.
Oh, chimmike, that’s really cute.
Tell “Mom” ‘hi’ for us.