Last month a man tried to get through a Las Vegas airport TSA checkpoint using someone else’s boarding pass and wound up facing federal charges after fighting TSA agents and local police, turning a pen into an offensive weapon.
According to the federal complaint, Jhon Raul Vizcaino Ramirez showed up at the security checkpoint trying to enter the secure area using a the boarding pass of a woman booked on a Southwest Airlines flight to Rochester, New York. Screeners questioned him about the discrepancy.
When they pressed him for matching ID, the man produced a passport sealed inside a plastic bag – but refused to hand it over. More TSA screeners came over, including a Spanish speaker. The man demanded that the agents give back his boarding pass. TSA refused – to them it was evidence. So Ramirez allegedly struck one of the officers in the head and grabbed their glasses.
Another screener called for help from Las Vegas police. Two police officers responded and tried to detain Ramirez. However, he reportedly fought with them and managed to flip one officer over his back, sending both of them crashing to the ground in the middle of the checkpoint area.
As TSA and local police tried to get control of him, Ramirez is said to have grabbed one of their pens and started trying to stab the police officers with it. He’s also accused of kicking a police officer twice and kicking a TSA officer in the face. Eventually, they managed to get him under control and into custody there at the checkpoint.
The man has been indicted by a federal grand jury, including for charges of interference with security screening personnel and entering an airport secure area by false pretenses, plus related assault counts tied to the attacks. He’s scheduled for an arraignment and plea hearing on December 12.
The job of TSA document checker and screener is more dangerous than you’d expect. This is hardly the first time we’ve seen an attack. For instance, a main lied in wait near a TSA checkpoint in Miami and sprinted out of hiding to attack a screener after having been diverted on a Copa flight the day before.
A cop tasered passengers in Atlanta as a fight broke out at security oer a man without ID. Surely the worst place in the airport to pick a fight is in front of TSA and cops.
Meanwhile an officer pulled a gun on passengers during a brawl also at the Miami airport when a Florida Man grabbed the keys from an airport employee’s golf cart.
Notably, it isn’t just passengers doing this. An American Airlines employee was charged after threatening to kill a TSA document checker. They had tried to use the PreCheck at Charlotte without a valid PreCheck boarding pass, hurled a racial slur, and things escalated from there.
“Lied in wait”?
Incoming: @George Romey to mock our justice system… read, complaint, arraignment and plea hearing, sir. It takes time, but there’s a process. We’re a nation of laws, and enforcement does happen, albeit not always perfect.
@Kirk – How true, I wondered that myself.
Good job TSA! Next up the negative Trump comments from @1990 and other h8ters.
No reenactments please, Zorkfest attendees!
@L737 — Nice callback. Isn’t that tomorrow?! *gasp*
The funniest part of the article…”security screening personnel”.
Yeah, right!
Sounds like some TSA members and/or the police need to know ‘hand to hand’ combat like Krav Maga. This guy shouldn’t have carried on the fight for this long. One punch and *bam*.
@Mike P — No, sorry, anarcho-libertarianism is still not the way to run a modern society.
@1990 — “Welcome to the world of tomorrow!”
“No, sorry, anarcho-libertarianism is still not the way to run a modern society.”
Always love when the straw man rears its ugly head.
@L737 — “Dat sword coss five touzan dolluuu!!”
You can bet that everyone of the offenders are DemocRAT voters ….that is a given.
@David R. Miller — Donchu mean ‘DemonRat’ as @Michael Mainello says? Yes, do vilify and refer to your perceived enemies as rodents… very Rwanda 1994 of you.
People that seem to think criminals running wild assaulting innocent people is a positive to society I have no words for. Maybe one day when it happens to them or a loved one and a DA or judge let’s that person walk free they might have a change in mind.
If I miss my daily airport meltdown videos on YT I can always catch up here.
@George Romey — No, George, no one actually said (or thought) that.
@Mike P — No, the strawman is calling you and the others ‘sovereign citizens’ unless that’s what you actually claim to be, in which case, enjoy your next traffic stop. Yikes.
Common decency hasn’t been common for decades