Suspected hazardous material at a California airport turned out to be honey.
Los Angeles, California (CNN) — The substance that spurred an evacuation at a California airport Tuesday was simply honey, the Kern County Sheriff’s Department said. The security scare happened after Transportation Security Administration agents found what they believed to be a potentially hazardous substance inside a passenger’s luggage.
“None of the items inside the bag contained explosive or hazardous material, and the liquid inside the five bottles was identified as honey,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement. The Meadows Field Airport had been evacuated and shut down for several hours Tuesday morning after authorities found what they called a hazardous substance.
The man whose bag was flagged, told authorities that he had honey packaged in five bottles, Deputy Michael Whorf, spokesman for the Kern County Sheriff’s Department told CNN. The 31-year-old man cooperated with authorities and was released with no charges against him, Whorf said.
No charges? In Kern County they usually trump up some charges. Never go there! It’s worse than Alabama in the 1930’s. This sort of idiocy is typical.They cannot even run a simple machine.
Found by Jason Baker.
Quote from article – “Why in this day and age would someone take a chance carrying honey in Gatorade bottles?” Youngblood asked. “That itself is an alarm. It’s hard to understand.”
The TSA considers it an alarm to transport honey, whatda ya know… lol
Based on all this hysteria, I’d say the terrorists have won, or at least are winning, watching us chase our tails, while attacks are being planned and intelligence agencies keep missing the boat.
When will the TSA begin preventing people with extensive or professional hand-to-hand combat experience from getting on planes?
How am I suppose to feel safe if these people are loose?
See now, if Europeans had a panic like that, we’d deride them as clueless Eurotrash.
But Americans did this. It’s time for us to realize that when Americans act so stupidly, panicking over nothing like little girls, there’s no reason for sympathy.
They were being Amerotrash.
> In Kern County they
> usually trump up some
> charges.
Wow. Did we get a series of CA good driver awards in Kern? It isn’t that bad. Yes, they have speed traps a plenty throughout Kern county, but 1930 Alabama it is not.
“The agents who discovered the substance opened the bag and both became nauseated, Whorf said. They were transported to the hospital and later released.”
OK, first of all, we need to fire TSA agents who get nauseated in the presence of honey.
Secondly, when did Commander Whorf get put in charge of the TSA ?
When honey is outlawed, only outlaws will have honey.
American history recap:
Americans panicking like big babies is nothing new. In fact, it is the norm.
#7. Ha!
Honey is the most natural and pure substance known to mankind, and best of all, we did not create, nature did! Therefore, it cannot be harmful and should not be considered dangerous!
What is wrong with the TSA? They exist, that’s what!
I’m glad they found you honey.
That’s why I stay home, except for my therapist visits.
I grew up in Bakersfield so believe the remark about trumped up charges being typical. I once thought they were the most corrupt law enforcement agencies, especially the Bakersfield Police, but now realize corruption is the norm in America not just American Law Enforcement.
More proof that we need to start using dogs to find explosive materials rather than bone headed TSA agents.
We flew 12-22-09 & the agent running the x-ray machine in our security line wasn’t watching the screen. The time we were in line till we got through was about 20-30 mins. This entire time the agent was turned to the left on her chair talking to another agent. I pointed it out to my wife. I didn’t bother brining it up to any agents because I knew nothing would happen besides maybe them hassling us & airport security is for show not to really stop anything. My favorite thing at airport security is when you forget something in your pocket & the metal detector DOESN’T go off, because the machine is off or not calibrated.
Keee-ripes! No one is going to say it?
Oh Bother!
Cursor_
Yes it was stupid, but that seems the norm nowadays. B’field is no worse than any other place. Remember when Boston shut down the morning commute over a ATHF blinking diode sign?
#13 Potenza
I saw this at Melbourne airport (in Oz) recently also. The guy operating the scanner was reading an auto magazine the whole time. The security is purely theatre, and in this case not particularly convincing theatre.
That’s what you get for stopping the brain drain from Canada.
So did the guy get his honey back or is a TSA agent getting a treat on his/her morning toast?
A terrorist’s “job” is not to kill us, it is to intimidate us, create fear (terror), paranoia, suspicion, and mistrust – in the hopes of coercing us to give up our freedoms.
Give in to it and the bad guys have won. Resist the urge to trade liberty for security, and we win. Democracy can stand up to terrorism without becoming the mirror of our enemies. Don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise,
It looks like the’ve been successful, so far. You can thank those politicians who told us, again and again, to be afraid, fear for their own political gain. (Code Orange! Code Yellow! WTF was that any way?)
==========
“If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
James Madison
GetReal says, “or in the guise of fighting “terror”.
#18,
The ATF blew it up in a controlled explosion. You know, just to be safe.
#21 Mr Fusion: Probably better that way. I’m guessing it was partly high fructose corn syrup. Deadly stuff, that!
I think they need to recalibrate their “sniffers” if they’re testing positive for two types of explosives yet finding only honey.
The honey was in containers labeled for something else. They were not sealed. No TSA agent or even office can field test the substance to determine what it is. The honey may be used to mask an explosive. But then if the TSA didn’t react this blog would be screaming how incompetent they are.
Customs will quite often confiscate honey on international flights. Why? Because in bulk it is too often used to smuggle items. Most jewelry is impossible to see and due to the properties of honey very difficult to inspect thoroughly.
As someone who flies a lot, they did the right thing.
Okay I do understand why they would hold a man and his baggage because of several containers of an unidentified liquid in his baggage.
In this case once he said it was honey it should have been fairly easy to make a quick determination if he was telling the truth. They had to be absolutely brain dead to shut down the air port over this.
Ralph, the Bus Driver said,
…As someone who flies a lot, they did the right thing.
Then explain the TSA Agent’s proclaimed sickness coming from the fumes of the “mysterious substance”.
They should have questioned the substance perhaps even taken the guy to secondary screening, but to hype it up and evacuate the entire facility and claim sickness to further the hype…knee jerk and incompetent.
Effing TSA is useless and a waste of tax payer money!
#25, O’Really,
Regardless of what the TSA did, someone would criticize them. In my opinion, an error on the side of caution under these circumstances is justified.
Mr. Fusion,
You’re right they are criticized regardless, and I agree that further inspection of the man and substance was warranted.
If the TSA had a track record of stellar service and world class safety it would be a different story, but it’s nothing more than a dog and pony show at our expense.