Trying To Keep America Safe -- and Screwing Up, as Usual

Here’s another real-life adventure that explains why so many Americans hate the government -- and anything organized and operated by the government. Latest case in point: how national security “safeguards” at the Mpls. St. Paul International Airport got confounded by one clueless traveler and her unusual “baggage.”

By now you’ve probably heard about it, thanks to local news coverage. From these reports, you may have concluded that some crazy lady disrupted holiday travel and shut down an entire terminal when she inexplicably abandoned a propane tank at the airport. Such conclusions, however, would be both unfair and inaccurate assumptions.

Once more, the professionals assigned to news gathering and sharing have failed the public. Once more, inaccuracy, incompetence, and self-serving PR have taken over local journalism. Doesn’t anybody in this town know how to report a simple news story with the 5 W’s anymore? If journalism is still alive and well in the Twin Cities metro area, it’s news to me.  I haven’t seen or heard or read any of it lately -- especially in regard to this incident at the airport.



After piecing info together from various media, I know this much is true:
1. Security wasn’t as good as it should have been.
2. The passenger in question wasn’t as bad as she could have been.
3. And, as usual, local media deleted and/or misrepresented pertinent details necessary to our understanding of this event.

Even the numerous websites went along with the PR from the Airport Spokesperson because it was easier than investigating the facts involved in the incident. That, in fact, seemed to be the common denominator for all these news services: turning biased PR into valid news stories, complete with created “factual information.” Their news motto is Screw the facts! We just report what The Man tells us! In this case, The Man happened to be “The Airport” -- a bureaucracy that encompasses confusion and incompetence on national, state, and local levels.

Apparently, if you want to keep working as a journalist in these parts, you’d better print what The Man wants you to print. You’d better report what The Man wants you to say. If you don’t, The Man will shut you out completely. Then you won’t have anything to cover. Then you won’t have a job.

Better to get the facts confused than to get no facts at all?

Needless to say, with such gutless acquiescence and cooperation from the local media these days, it’s getting harder and harder to figure out what actually happened. After reading, watching, and listening, this blogger has put a few pieces of the puzzle together...and it’s not a pretty picture. No, I’m not satisfied nor reassured with security operations at the airport. And if you’re planning to board a plane sometime soon, you shouldn’t be too happy about it, either.

On Friday, December 20th, a woman named Martha P. Morocho (35 years of age) was getting ready to board her plane when she stopped at the ticket counter to check in her baggage. Common procedure, common activity. This time, though, there was uncommon baggage, too.

Among her belongings was a 2ft. by 2ft. box that contained a small propane tank. That's right, a propane tank.

Now I’m not going to defend Ms. Morocho’s choice of baggage or subsequent actions. Personally, I think she used poor judgement here. She made a bad decision all right. Given all the lingering fear and paranoia in our post 9-11 world, she shouldn’t have even attempted to get on a plane with such an incendiary device. Then again, not everyone is on the same wavelength in this country, in this world.

You just can’t expect everyone to know what you know, even if what you know is pretty obvious to you. To her, maybe this little propane tank was just a Christmas present for Uncle Harry, to go with his new grill. After all, it WAS unwrapped. That’s in accordance with the rules, right? No wrapped presents on a plane anymore, right?

Besides, if she really had been a terrorist, she wouldn’t have openly showed it for all to see or identified its contents to the airline ticket staff. All things considered, Ms. Morocho was pretty upfront about what she wanted to check in and why.

At that point, however, the ticketing staff could have easily alerted security about this package. Then the authorities could have confiscated this propane tank. That’s what they’ve been doing for years with pocket knives, cutical scissors, and expensive hairsprays that contain volatile ingredients, anyway.

Nowadays, airport security has all kinds of options for handling questionable passengers and their “suspicious” luggage. They can detain travelers indefinitely and keep them on ice in the back room until the CIA or FBI arrive -- if need be. They can do all kinds of things if they even suspect people in airports might be up to no good, thanks to the Patriot Act. Passengers, on the other hand, aren’t always given such a variety of options.

Ms. Morocho could either keep this package and stay off the airplane; or, she could board the plane without said package. That was it.

In this case, the airline ticketing staff and airport security could have seized the “suspicious” box and began interrogating her. They didn’t. They just told her she couldn’t get on the plane with it. I can almost hear them telling her,“you can’t board the plane with this box,” over and over.

As long as she had this propane tank in the box, she couldn’t get on the plane. No other instructions or options were given to this traveler. So what was she supposed to do?

Leave the airport in shame? Hang out at Starbucks until the bomb squad arrived? Miss her flight because the family member sanctioned by the authorities couldn’t rush over to the airport soon enough to take away this little propane tank?

Really, what was she supposed to do at this point?

You can argue that she should have known better. Yeah, it was all her fault. Yeah, she got herself in this predicament in the first place. Okay. I agree. Point well taken.

But then, not everyone is a frequent flyer. Not everyone has a state-of-the art computer or cell phone with the right app that tells what you can and can’t take on a plane.

But yeah, she should have known better. Shame on her! Bad passenger! Naughty passenger! I get the point.

Now let’s go back to my initial question: What was this traveler supposed to do?

With the high costs of airplane travel and difficulties with rebooking during the holidays, it’s understandable that she still wanted to board her scheduled flight. But she couldn’t mail the package via FedEx or UPS. There wasn’t enough time to take it back to her car and leave it there, either. (I don’t care what airport officials reportedly said. Leaving a propane tank in your car is NEVER a good idea.) Given the circumstances and time constraints, she did the only thing possible that would allow her to make her scheduled flight. Ms. Morocho asked an employee at one of the airport stores to hold this package until her husband could come and get it.

No, this wasn’t an alleged request to ask other people to “watch” the package after she illegally and inconsiderately dumped it at the airport. Ms. Morocho made a bona fide request and got an affrimative response. I saw the interview on TV myself. According to the employee, this strange woman approached her in the store and said something like:  Would you do me a really big favor? Could you hold this package for me until my husband comes to pick it up?

Oh sure, no problem, yah yah bettcha! This interviewed employee was Minnesota Nice personified...Until she later decided that the package she’d promised to hold was “suspicious-looking.”

So, after cheerfully agreeing to keep and guard said package, MN Nice notified airport security. Then Ms. Morocho was removed from the plane she’d just boarded, and all hell broke loose -- not necessarily in that order.

OMG! Suspicious-looking package! Help! Call the bomb squad! Two hour flight delays, not mention partial shutdown of Terminal 2 at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport! DANGER! DANGER!

What’s conspicuously missing from this real-life event, though,  is the truth -- the actual facts involved in this security fiasco. But The Man didn’t want the truth to get out.

Why?

Because the airport personnel who had important roles in this drama failed miserably. The ticketing staff as well as the store employee should have immediately notified security. In her eagerness to “help” a stranger, MN Nice ended up screwing Ms. Morocho. Her first response to the request should have been Whoa, why do you want me to hold this package for you and what’s in this package? Then MN Nice should have alerted security BEFORE the stranger boarded the plane. Furthermore, security should have given Ms. Morocho accurate information and helpful instruction on what they wanted her to do. That way, she could have legally and easily boarded her flight in time. But they didn’t.

They didn’t act appropriately or sensibly. As far as I can tell, none of the airport personnel handled this situation very well.

And now, it’s all the passenger’s fault.

Already, Airport Spokespersons are trying to spin the story so that all our attention is diverted towards vilifying this passenger and not with noticing shortcomings of airport security. Forget the facts, it’s time to scapegoat this holiday traveler. Let’s vilify, ridicule, then crucify her. Let’s make her a living example of what can happen when passengers make The Man look bad.

Thanks to the Airport Spindoctors, this woman became the sole cause of both flight delays and the shutdown of Terminal 2. Nothing in their PR releases was mentioned about how she actually asked the store employee for help and how this employee actually agreed to hold this package for her. Or that Ms. Morocho’s husband really DID show up to claim this package after all hell had broken loose.

No, their self-serving PR paints a scary story of how an unstable, suspicious passenger left a package unattended at the airport -- and how brave airport  personnel sprang into action to protect the other passengers.

Of course, this calamity wouldn’t have ensued had these heroes acted competently and efficiently in the first place. Too bad the spindoctors neglected to share that important bit of info with the public.

But I don’t blame AIRPORT, INC. as much as I blame our overly agreeable and ever-lazy local media. I know you journalists want to keep your jobs and healthcare benefits, but can’t you give us a few FACTS once in awhile?

Instead of spending big money on graphics for “The Rest of the Story,” how about actually delivering the rest of the story? Get a few reporters to do some legwork. Make a few calls. Research. Investigate. Interview.

While it might be easier (and cheaper) for local news establishments to show us the best grilled cheese sandwich in Minnesota or share feelings about Frank’s new hip replacement or Heather’s pregnancy, it would be nice to get some accurate news sometime soon.