The TSA says a 21 year-old man was caught smuggling a box cutter onto an airplane by hiding it inside a secret compartment inside a book. The man says he forgot the box cutter was inside the book.
From the TSA’s website:
The X-ray image of a box cutter inside Benjamin Baines Jr.’s backpack caught the attention of federal officers Sunday morning at Tampa International Airport.
But it was the packaging that really jolted them: a hollowed-out book that hid the razor-sharp tool. Also inside the backpack: a Koran, a Holy Bible and rap music lyrics referencing police, drugs and guns.
Baines, 21, of Clearwater told investigators he forgot the box cutter was inside the copy of Fear Itself when he packed his bag for a trip to Las Vegas, states a report by Tampa International Airport police.
He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, a misdemeanor. He pleaded guilty Monday in Hillsborough County court and received a 30-day jail sentence. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is looking into the case but has not filed charges.
“What raises our concern is when an item is artfully concealed,” said Christopher White, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. “It’s different than a box cutter inside a backpack.”
Relatives say that it was just a misunderstanding: “He’s not militant,” said James Layne, a 28-year-old cousin. “He’s not a crazy blow-yourself-up kind of guy. It’s all a major misunderstanding.” Baines said that he cut the compartment into the book to conceal marijuana and to keep money from being stolen by roommates. We think Baines might want to cut back just a bit on the marijuana.
TIA Finds Cutter Hidden in Book [TSA]
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@rhombopteryx: Who knew there was any other kind of rap music.
I suppose, in their effort to co-opt everything normal, there is probably evangelical christian rap music, that references Jeebus, Ted Haggerty’s meth addiction, and unborn fetuses. Like that’s any better than “rap music lyrics referencing police, drugs and guns.”
Bonus: Could the rap lyrics have referenced police as good civil servants, drugs as the scourge of the underclass and nice recreation for people who can afford them, and gun control as a rational policy in an insane world. Or would that be viewed as even more insane?
@MDSasquatch: Responsible is the key word in your second question.
“Also inside the backpack: a Koran, a Holy Bible and rap music lyrics referencing police, drugs and guns.”
I’ve secretly dreamed of getting caught by the police for something and having them discover my car full of Good Housekeeping, Simplicity magazines and Disney Princess videos.
I wonder how they’d write that up on CNN.com.
@dugn: You should make up rap lyrics about specific articles from the magazines, and keep them together. It would make a better story.
Sorry but you cant fix Stupid…Move along nothing more to see here…..
@dugn: Dugn caught red handed with materials and plans for World Domination and enslavement of the modern man and Women…….heh heh
@sam1am:
Think you have your causality a little confused there. I’d love to see you argue that rap music has created the conditions that provide much of its content.
@Peeved Guy:
And Marilyn Manson and Grand Theft Auto are to blame for Columbine, right? Wait, no? Is that because they’re in the domain of a socio-economic class that doesn’t scare you?
He’s lucky it was just the boxcutter in there (misdemeaner) and not the weed (felony, given that it is a pretty good sized hole in the book).
“Uh, sir, I didn’t mean to cut out a section of my book, hide a knife in there, and forget about it. Honest!”
Ya know, if I had a roommate that distrusted me so much as this guy distrusted his roommates, and I knew said roommate would be going on a plane trip, and I knew said roommate would be taking his “stash” book with him, I might just replace his weed with a boxcutter just to f*ck with him (thinking like a college-kid here). It’s all fun and games until someone gets a full body-cavity search! That’ll teach him to not trust me.
A boxcutter is a concealed weapon? Wow they better go arrest all the employees at every grocery store in the country.
I guess weed comes in the exact same size and shape as a box cutter now.
Damn this weed is hard to light! Dude, your smokin my razor mannnnnn!
@j4yx0r: so funny!
so the guy was creepy as he was carrying a device he intended to use as a weapon because he kept it in a hollowed out book. i gather from that he was intending to do harm on the plane. but the literature he had with him should not be used to profile him. i’m really sick of people making hte assumption that someone who is muslim is out to do harm. there may have been no association between the literature he had and his actual intentions. the koran does not speak of causing violence and killing christians. it speaks of quite the opposite. i quite like the religion.
@Peeved Guy: except that the bible and the koran speak of peace, tolerance and love. it was the folks who wanted power and lived corruption that caused the violence… not the religious literature we speak of. before we make assumptions about a religion itself, lets review history and its literature.
@pigeonpenelope: actually the religious texts of both religions can be read to support violent actions and have been used so since they were written. That having been said, atheists have done just as much damage as any believer.
it dosen’t change the fact that the kid is a freaking idiot right off the bat, and potentially intending harm on that flight. throw him in the brig with huckabees gun smuggler son ^_^
It’s pretty bizarre that this minor incident would be on a government website. It’s like TSA saying we finally found our weapons of mass destruction!
(BTW — I would if he really plead guilty or is this was a sloppy TSA report)
@inno: @pigeonpenelope:
LOL. One comment from me in jest (half-jest anyway) and I get jumped by someone defending rap music and one person defending religion. Only on The Consumerist.
@Peeved Guy: I was going to jump on you for using an avatar and undermining the lucrative avatar elf cabal, but I figured the rampant idiocy today was already out of control.
@DoctorMD: Um.. you do know what the 911 hijackers used as weapons, right? Maybe not…
@Tenno: i disagree (and agree with you about the athiest part). i will respectfully agree to disagree so as to not go into a debate. i’m sure we have valid arguments for both povs.
@Peeved Guy: i guess i came off a bit harsh towards you. i didn’t mean to jump on you but to comment back. i should have made a space between points as i was aiming that towards folks who are blaming religion and not zealots for violence. my apologies to you. thanks for being so easy going.
@pigeonpenelope: Meh. No worries. This touches on one of the three “off-limit” topics, so a little passion form folks is to be expected. Thanks for clearing the air.
“OMG, how could I have been so forgetful, leaving this box-cutter in my normal, everyday hollowed-out book???”
I don’t know what the guy was up to, but he fell out of the moron-tree and hit every branch coming down.
I wouldn’t exactly call that “artfully concealed” either.
“[R]ap music lyrics referencing police, drugs and guns.”
Or, in other words: rap music.
gee thanks, was taking a drink when I read your post, and almost choked…good one@DrGirlfriend:
I heard terrorists use music lyrics with bad words to attack the US imagination.
@pigeonpenelope: You talk about assumptions and profiling, yet you automatically think he was going to use a box cutter as a weapon, and not as a, you know, tool for cutting things, like say, the hole in the very book he put it in….
Unlike what you may think, cutting a hole in the pages of a book is a time consuming thing.
It had to be an accident – the TSA hardly ever detects weapons anyway, why would you bother hiding one?
(Plus, having recently gone through x-ray training, I’ve gotta say, it’s a lot easier spotting a blade neatly hidden in something organic like a book than just jumbled together with a bunch of stuff.)
My favorite part of this story is that since the hole in the box was filled with a box-cutter, he got a misdemeanor. Yet if it had been filled with pot, it probably would have been a felony, owing to the size of the hole he cut in there.
You know… I am actually thinking that the guy infact DID just forget it was in there. Who hides a thin boxcuter in a LARGE hollowed out space in a book? Better place would be in the binding.
What worries me was that he was charged with carrying a concealed weapon. So If I am on the street & get searched by a cop & I happen to have a boxcutter or a pocketknife on me that is concealed…. I could be arrested for it? SOrry, but where I grew up…. just about every guy carried a pocketknife. And when I worked at walmart I had a small boxcutter on my keychain.
@DoctorMD: You are kidding me, correct? The box cutter was CONCEALED in a hollowed out book. Which part of this is confusing? A box cutter is a weapon…so is a butcher’s knife.
@forgottenpassword: He was at an airport trying to get through security with a box cutter HIDDEN IN A CUT OUT BOOK. This would be concealing. You cannot sneak this on the plane. It shows an active attempt to bring this banned object on the plane. Now, if you simply had a pocket knife in your bag and it shows no intent to hide it, most likely you will not be charged.
Seriously, you guys cannot differentiate between the circumstances of this case and what you suggested in your posts?
“Oh i’m sorry sir, I forgot the box cutter was in a book that I hallowed-out before”
This reminds me of my recently-former boss who ordered 1000′s of small, retractable box cutters with the company logo as a trade show givaway. Then he wondered why thre were few takers at the shows. He actually said, “I have not been caught yet!”
What a doofus….
When packing the book that he carved the hole in (he obviously isn’t going to read it) you would think that he would make sure that whatever it was he was going to hide in it was there. Basically, he would’ve checked that he packed his stash. leading me to believe: his stash was the box cutter.
@DoctorMD: if they were getting on a plane sure.
This has attention whore written all over it.
No waterboarding… except for that guy. And the idiot family members defending him. And a mandatory vasectomies for the whole lot of them. Sorry, but when you’re getting on a plane there is some crap you just don’t bring along. And what idiot wouldn’t check his weed box before packing it for a flight.