I do have to say that while there is no direct evidence that it was an angry ex-girlfriend who was responsible for calling in a security threat and naming her former boyfriend as a bad guy smuggling bad things on a flight to Dallas-Fort Worth this week, someone who isn’t upset doesn’t do that to another person. She and a reportedly current boyfriend are now in custody, and in an odd twist, so is the guy who was originally cleared of being linked to explosives when he was removed from the flight.
Let’s start with the bomb hoax perpetrators: ABC News says it was a “spiteful ex-girlfriend” who rang up Philadelphia airport authorities to say that a man on a U.S. Airways flight had liquid explosives. Said man happened to be celebrating his 29th birthday that day, which makes the whole experience one awful surprise present.
The inspector on the case says there’s no motive yet (uh, spite?) and that the ex-galpal and believed new boyfriend are in custody, but no charges have been filed yet.They’re being questioned by federal authorities and are definitely in hot water.
“This is no joke,” said the police inspector. ”These will be federal charges…they’re going to be very serious charges. It’s just an incredibly foolish and irresponsible thing to do,” he added. “And bottom line, it’s criminal.”
After the man was cleared of any wrongdoing in that case, he had a bit more bad luck land on him in the form of cops figuring out he had outstanding warrants racked up against him. He was subsequently re-arrested on Thursday in connection to those warrants when he landed back in Texas, reports the Associated Press.
When it rains, it pours, right?
*Thanks for the tips, Andrew and Chizu!
Police: Angry Ex-Girlfriend Triggered US Airways Bomb Hoax [ABC News]
Man who was subject of Pa. jet explosives hoax later arrested in Texas on outstanding warrants [Associated Press]
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“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/ Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” by William Congreve in The Mourning Bride of 1697.
The boyfriend called.
Please change your name to “Loias doesn’t support reading articles carefully before commenting”
ABC news has it wrong. A man, Kenneth W. Smith, is the one being charged, and he admitted making the call to get revenge on behalf of his GF because the guy he faked the threat about used to date her and had posted a lewd FB photo of her recently.
Yeah, it seems that a lot of news sources do. CNN finally got it right.
If she instigated the whole thing, I guarantee she was arrested as well. Just because she did not make the call does not mean she was not part of the criminal act.
A dubious distinction at best. Fling enough feces at the wall and eventually some will stick.
But when it hits the fan is when you really have problems!
Pardon the threadjack, but the heck with a woman scorned – hell truly hath no greater fury than working weekends in retail.
“Don’t stick your dick in crazy”- Me
I’m not really going to side with the “victim” here if he still has warrants out on him. Seems like everyone was wrong here.
So the guy deserved to be named as someone who was a danger to a plane full of people because he had warrants out on him for an unrelated offense which could, for all you know, be an unpaid speeding ticket or two?
My neighbor has parking tickets that I see him ball up and toss on the ground, making him a scofflaw and a litterbug – should I call the cops and report him as a pedophile?
The outstanding warrants were for drug possession, not speeding tickets.
A responsible, honorable, person would dealt with them vs. being a fugitive.
“would have”
So a guy who had a warrant for drug possession deserves no sympathy for being dragged off of a plane as a suspected threat – even though the incidents are unrelated?
Just so I have this straight – loias will not “side with” the victims of a crime unless they have spotless criminal records? Yeah, that’s stupid.
I think you’re taking this way out of context.
A person with outstanding warrants is a fugitive from justice. A person who has not done the right thing to deal with their legal issues. Am I saying he is a criminal? No. He is merely charged with a crime. But he choose not to do the honorable thing and deal with it. So no I do not have sympathy for that.
Sorry, eccsame wins. Judgmental people are irksome enough, but it’s especially irritating when they’re irrationally so. You know nothing about his situation, his alleged past crimes, or anything else for that matter. It doesn’t pertain to the case at hand anyway.
The world is not black and white. It is hypothetically even possible that becoming a fugitive from justice actually IS “doing the right thing” in certain circumstances.
eccsame wins.
Drug posession is an awfully wide ranging charge. Much like “sex offender”. People assume it means something horrible. In reality, there’s a lot of cases where someone peed in public while drunk and inadvertantly exposed themselves. Or in the case of drug charges, got caught smoking weed in the park.
Without other evidence, I’m inclined to assume he was smoking that evil, evil mary jane.
At least 1 article I read indicated it was a misdemeanor possession of marijuana under 2 grams. Yeah he should take care of the warrant, but seriously many places are making offenses like this nothing more than a jaywalking ticket.
err ounces, not grams
I think posting a lewd photo of an ex girlfriend is much worse than smoking pot. He deserved what he got, of course the airline, police and other passengers didn’t deserve it.
A “…responsible, honorable, person would [have] dealt with them vs. being a fugitive.”
A responsible, honorable person would not have been in a position to have warrants issued in the first place.
Be that as it may, even if a person is a criminal he/she should not be charged with a crime which he/she did not commit.
An arrest (or warrant for one’s arrest) should not be taken as proof of guilt. We still have due process in this country.
An arrest is not proof of guilt, but we don’t know if the warrant was issued before a conviction or after. A warrant could be issued after a conviction if there was a failure to appear for sentencing. A warrant could also be issued if there was a potential violation of probation.
…an unpaid speeding ticket or two…
Your point is well taken, but it was warrants for drug possession.
Sounds like all 3 of them deserve each other.
He was released and charges were dropped for the bomb threat, otherwise I’d obviously feel for someone being wrongly accused.
But the event caused him to be caught for outstanding warrants, which are his own doing (unless we hear about some other kind of frame-up for THOSE).
Meh. What if he was only caught with a couple of joints on him? Who cares?
He wasn’t. One of the warrants was for MJ, but the other was for “< 28g controlled substance", which means something other than MJ.
All this info is available in the various articles linked on this page both above and below.
MJ is a “controlled substance” too…unless it specifically says what it was for, it’s just as likely the person writing it each time did it differently.
Or that they were both for the exact same arrest, and he was charged multiple times with a “different” offence.
A bit like being charged with ‘exceeding the posted limit,’ ‘reckless endangerment,’ ‘reckless operation of a motor vehicle,’ and ‘driving at a speed unsafe for conditions’ because you were going 5 MPH over the limit on the interstate when it was cloudy.
Then they’ll offer to drop all the charges but one if you agree to plead guilty. What nice guys.
Yes!
How DARE someone with outstanding warrants wish to fly/travel!?
Well the next time someone with an outstanding warrant for sexual assault wants to go somewhere, we’ll make sure he sits next to you on the plane.
Yeah, or if he’s Hitler. Then you’ll be sorry for your comment.
…or a Penn State coach, or a priest.
Good thing we’re all innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
No, we’re not. That’s a completely bogus application of that phrase.
“Innocent until proven guilty” means the State cannot punish someone until they have been proven guilty in a court of law. It DOES NOT mean that individual citizens are obligated to consider someone innocent of having committed a crime. It certainly doesn’t mean that person has not committed a crime.
Someone who committed a crime is not innocent. They are a criminal who has committed a crime. Their status within the Criminal Justice System (whether or not they have been convicted) does not change that fact.
It’s unfortunate that merely having an open warrant means to you they’re a criminal, and you can judge their character.
You’re not alone, of course. To a lot of people, a mugshot in the paper is guilt enough, why even have trials?
Just remember that any one of us can be accused of anything from terrorism to child abuse. The notion that warrants imply guilt is sickening.
But he did presumably skirt the warrant, which is a crime in of itself.
I do realize there are circumstances where someone will have “ignored” a warrant that they were simply unaware of, and that certainly could be the case here. But assuming for a moment he knew about the warrant, which is a fairly same assumption, he IS a criminal by definition. Perhaps only a misdemeanor criminal for skirting the warrant, or perhaps a bigger one for being guilt of the charges associated with the warrant.
If the elements of the crime cannot be proven, then the person cannot be found guilty to that crime. Whether or not they actually happened is irrelevant.
To assume that anybody who is arrested is guilty and it’s only a matter of whether or not it can be proven is foolish.
I’ll be there with bells on!
Literally bells…if you stop hearing them jingling CALL THE POLICE!
that would never happen
they don’t issue warrants for TSA agents
Actually yes, if you have an outstanding warrant you should be in custody, not hopping on a plane to who-knows-where.
CAPS (the predecessor program to SecureFlight that was never implemented) was supposed to screen all passengers for outstanding warrants. Were an active warrant to be found, the passenger would be denied boarding, detained and handed over to law enforcement.
Texas authorities said Shell had outstanding warrants for two drug-possession charges – less than 2 ounces of marijuana and less than 28 grams of a controlled substance. He was jailed Friday morning on $3,000 bond in Collin County near Dallas.
An angry ex-girlfriend?
Inconceivable!!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
My name is Scorned Girlfriend. You broke up with me. Prepare to die.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/christopher-shell-explosives-hoax-arrest_n_1864154.html for additional details.
Women! Am I right?
The article says the woman’s current botfriend called.
So men! Am I right?
Ah those bots. What else would they do if you don’t keep an eye on them?
No, as usual, you’re quite wrong.
” it was an angry ex-girlfriend who was responsible for calling in a security threat”
“ABC News says it was a “spiteful ex-girlfriend” who rang up Philadelphia airport authorities”
Okay, so it was the boyfriend, the articles linked above and the blurb on this site have it wrong.
No worries. It was clearly misleading from the Consumerist brief, and their linked articles.
I’d probably have done the same thing, eccsame.
Let’s just let this article die and get on to the weekend. It has been grinding for two days and I don’t think anyone has gotten the correct story.
Humans. Am I right?
some psycho chick calls in a fake warning to f up her ex and then claims her current boyfriend did it
no, you’re not right
Too bad this did not occur aboard an American Airlines flight. The former boyfriend could have been in a first class seat near the cockpit, possibly previously vacated by a family with a child with special needs.
FFS
“He got weed! He got weed!”
Charges? Our society hates to punish women. I bet she’ll skate free and get some form of community service.