Last month Besnik Ismajlaj, a 53-year-old man from St. Charles, Illinois, was arrested at Chicago O’Hare for carrying a loaded gun through a TSA checkpoint and boarding a United Airlines flight. Newly released body cam footage shows the TSA failure that let him board his flight armed.
BREAKING: Chicago police just released bodycam footage shows Illinois man arrested after bringing loaded gun on plane.
Police bodycam footage shows the moment a man was dragged off a flight at Chicago O’Hare International Airport after TSA flagged a loaded, concealed… pic.twitter.com/GcRvZVjtYY
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) May 14, 2025
It happened at Terminal 1’s security checkpoint 2 during a shift change. The man’s bag was scanned, a screener identified the image of a firearm inside, but the passenger took the backpack with the firearm off the machine and walked off.
The airport cleared a path through the terminal while TSA and Chicago police rushed to track him down. In the meantime, the man boarded his flight at gate E14 and sat down in first class. Police approached Ismajlaj and asked if he understood why they were there. Calmly, he replied, “Yeah, it’s in my bag.”
After leaving the plane, he explained that he had forgotten the gun was in his bag. Officers then opened his backpack, finding a loaded Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol in an easily accessible front pocket.
Ismajlaj has an Illinois concealed carry permit, but federal law forbids passengers from bringing loaded firearms into secured areas of an airport airport or onto aircraft. He faces a misdemeanor charge for carrying a concealed firearm at an airport.
According to another passenger on the plane, “CPD just yanked a guy off my flight at O’Hare,” and then everyone else had to deplane while the plane was swept.
TSA had found the firearm at the checkpoint – which is more than past DHS Inspector General reports would lead you to expect – but they were allowed to simply grab their bag and walk away. That was a major failure by the agency.
During the manhunt, the agency halted security screenings across both Terminals 1 and 2.
Still boggles my mind that someone can “forget” that they are carrying a loaded weapon with them.
Forgetting you have a gun some where is possible. Moving one from one vehicle to a storage location, get diverted to something more important and when you get to the airport, the gun is not supposed to be, but with you.
Most times it is a mistake and no threat.
TSA just makes it an expensive $$$$$ mistake regardless.
Happens a lot.
They say “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” But this seems like willful ignorance at best. So, @Bob Smith, it doesn’t seem like he ‘forgot,’ rather, it seems like he tried to evade the rules. Doesn’t matter who, their background, etc., this is not good. Glad the agents actually found and removed him. Another saying, ‘sunlight cleanses,’ may apply here as well. Greater awareness hopefully leads to more accountability.
TSA needs to be arrested also for not doing their job. That machine should have locked down the bag so it could not move.
This does not happen in Europe. Gun crazy idiots
TSA needs to be arrested also for not doing their job. That machine should have locked down the bag so it could not move.
This does not happen in Europe. Gun crazy idiots.
How can anyone not realize they have a firearm in their carry on?
I was stopped at LAS when the screener noticed a single 9mm in my backpack that had apparently been there for years and never detected. It was lodged so deep it took 4 people to get it. Finally a tiny woman with small hands was able to retrieve it. Having a single shell deep in your pack is an accident. A full size loaded firearm is not.
@doug. Forgetting you have a gun somewhere is irresponsible gun ownership. That is like saying I forgot I have $5,000,000 in the bank.
You are just saying that those who forget they have a gun should never possess a gun ever again.
@doug. Forgetting you have a gun somewhere is irresponsible gun ownership. That is like saying I forgot I have $5,000,000 in the bank.
You are just saying that those who forget they have a gun should never possess a gun ever again. .
How did he get past the epitome of super competent, TSA ?
There is a right to bear arms, nothing about needing to be responsible. That is just a ‘norm’ that has developed over time, and as we have seen in recent times long-standing norms are rather easily swept away
IDK much about ownership, but I’m pretty sure if you’re just “transporting” it, it’s not supposed to be loaded.
This guy made a choice. IDK why he did, but every indication is that he knew what he was doing (took the bag AFTER it was verbally identified as having a firearm, acknowledging it when prompted without the officers explicitly mentioning the reason). This doesn’t look like an honest mistake at all.
For all we know, he’s planning an attack. I’m hoping the prosecutors found something to indicate something other than criminal intent, because it sure looks like malicious intent.
The guy looks perfectly harmless to me. We need to stop being pussies
Abolish all police
Loss of TSA PreCheck and the dreaded “SSSS” added to the boarding pass for a few years is to always check your bag
Dr. David Dao was also dragged off a United Airlines aircraft in Chicago to make room for another person but, he was not packing a pistol.
The TSA brags that it confiscated 6,678 firearms at checkpoints in 2024. Historically, they miss 90% of contraband that comes into security, but let’s pretend that they actually find 90%. That would mean that last year, around 700 people (roughly 2 per day) flew with a gun and nothing bad happened. The real number is probably 5-10x that many. The fact that millions of dollars and millions of hours are wasted every single day to play security theater with a bunch of glorified mall security guards speaks to so much that is broken about our government and society. I wish that someone had the courage to actually fix it.
Another major failure by TSA. Anything suspicious should not be left on a conveyor belt for the passenger to pick up. This guy has a license to carry a concealed loaded gun (but not on an airplane) so it was carelessness that got him in trouble.
@Ken A — Thank you. Any time we can bring up that genuine hero is a good day to me. Bless you, Dr. Dao. May you enjoy your large cash settlement in paradise. Seychelles? Maldives? Nah, I bet he flew Air France to Tahiti; you know, he of all people should skip United after what happened. UA3411, never forget!
@tom — Speaking of the 2nd Amendment, we tend to ignore the ‘well-regulated’ part, too. As with most rights, there are limitations and exceptions. It’s not absolute. There’s a lot of caselaw out there. Restricting firearms in airports and on airplanes is certainly reasonable. We should not revert to frontier justice on-board. This ain’t the ‘wild west’ no more. Though, it sure feels like Hell on Wheels sometimes. (Great show, by the way.)
@Unintimidated — Sheesh! Bad take. We need some form of law enforcement. Yes, it shouldn’t be excessive or extra-legal. But, also, it’s not just ‘the guy’; it’s that he was… packin’ heat, son..
@Tomri — That’s a silly take. First, no, we don’t arrest agents for this; yes, it was a lapse; hopefully, lessons will be learned, never happen again. Second, Europe? They got weapons problems, too. Did everyone forget Brussels 2016. Not great. We’re all trying our best to prevent this.
Also, what’s up with the duplicates above (@Tomri, @Dillon)?
A few years ago, I was going through a TSA checkpoint and forgot I had a small steak knife in my backpack. I had just been on a camping trip (which I drove to) and had enjoyed the benefit of having a sharp utensil with me. I then completely forgot I had left the knife in a pouch in the backpack. When the TSA agent found the knife, I was mortified, and wondered how much trouble I might be in. Fortunately, she just confiscated the $2 knife, and I was sent on my way. Not surprisingly, having a forgotten gun with you is a much bigger problem. 🙂
@1990. So if the guy shot up
Everyone on the plane the tsa agent who did not do their job would have clean hands. Some protection TSA has.
@1990. So if the guy shot up
Everyone on the plane the tsa agent who did not do their job would have clean hands. Some protection TSA has. .
1. Why does a person need to carry a gun on a plane unless they’re a FAM? I don’t think you will see wild game roaming up and down the aisle
2. Another TSA fail and why the mall cops should be replaced by effective technology that would be faster, cheaper and certainly better.
People forgetting they have a loaded gun with them happens all the time, I don’t know the stats but I think it is hundreds of times a year at US airports.
“Why does a person need to carry a gun on a plane unless they’re a FAM? I don’t think you will see wild game roaming up and down the aisle”
Well, they don’t, but they may not have seperate luggage they use for flying, they might just have a bag they threw some travel items in and went. (That said, I do agree that one really shouldn’t just forget they’ve got a piece in their bag. But as a few others have commented this apparently does happen quite a few times a year.)
@Doug I actually agree. I haven’t flown for many years, but when I flew to Morocco and back, you had the full checkpoints and bag screenings and whatever here. There, you went into the airport and got on your flight. I didn’t feel less safe (… well, until the Rolls Royce logo ripped off one of the engines mid-flight — that made me wonder a bit about Royal Air Moroc’s maintenance, but this was a very short Morocco to Madrid flight so I wasn’t too concerned.) The transatlantic flights were American (I think?) codeshared with Iberia, so it was AA one way and Iberia the other.. I must say the Iberia plane was nicer and the Spanish meal was quite nice. (That flight was enough nicer that if it went the other way.. living in Spain, paid for an Iberia flight and ended up with AA, I’d probably be a tad annoyed.)
Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.
The biggest story here – unless there is some reason to believe that the guy intended to do ill on this flight (and I haven’t seen it even suggested) – the only story here is the utter failure of TSA to accomplish even the simplest tasks despite the massive costs and impositions on the public of their “security.”
Everyone can take a deep breath as they confiscated my Evian water so everyone can be safe again
I’m not convinced this is the complete TSA debacle suggested in the article or discussed here. There is def significant room for improvement in TSA processes.
However, in this instance, it was not a failure of detection (they spotted the gun). Nor did they fail to stop him from flying with the contraband (they pulled him off the plane and searched it).
There’s a gap here, but it wasn’t huge. The whole raison d’etre for TSA is avoiding another 9/11 and they met that bar. They obviously still need to work on processes for preventing folks just walking away with their bags, but it was not a disaster.
Also interesting that folks bring up the 90% failure rates. Last time I looked (admittedly like 10 years ago), they weren’t missing the firearms, but much smaller stuff that could easily be mistakened for something else or overlooked completely (we all pack lots of crap in carryons). The Mythbusters guy had a long but thin blade missed by the body scanners, I’ve had scissors that flew out with me on the outbound and were caught on return, etc. But a gun? That’s probably the easiest thing for those scanners to spot, as evidenced here.
I still want to do what he was doing at the airport KNOWING that he had a loaded weapon and evading security about it.
@Dwondermeant — Since you brought up water, Evian, from France, is indeed a personal favorite, though I similarly find it interesting how Fiji water seemingly makes it around the world. Turns out, Fiji imports most things (like, manufactured goods, etc.), so instead of sending shipping containers back empty, they fill them with their water to export. So, yes, it’s literally from Fiji, not just a theme. Learned more about that when I visited last year. It stuck with me. Still, I prefer Evian. Bah!
Our TSA should travel to the UK or Australia to see how its supposed to be done. Those blokes do not fool around!
@Maleko — Funny you mention it, because, I recall Australia customs to be quite liberal about handing out AUD $1000 fines for just about everything. I recall in 2015, the so-called ‘War On Terrier’ when the former MP and deputy PM Barnaby Joyce threatened Johnny Depp that his two pet dogs would be euthanized if not removed from Australia after being imported illegally. Not. Fooling. Around. Indeed.
Maybe he gets deported?
That’s not an American name, he’s been charged with a crime, probably an immigrant that’s a threat to the general public. Nobody needs to pack a gun in O’Hare or Chicago.
TSA…Too Stupid for America or Thousands Standing Around.
Nothing is going to change the TSA. Like the flight crews flying the jet…you want people in the TSA who are hired on the basis of their qualifications and not taking some jackleg off of the street and slapping a badge on them. If there is a tape of the passenger passing through and the agent is identified…fire him/her. Oh, wait…they have a union. A Federal employee with a union. Stupid. The passenger…arrested and jailed. No fly list on all flag carriers.
It was Chicago. Police should arm everyone. Guy was probably happy to get out of city alive.
I often read people’s comments and be surprised by how people automatically seem to think that someone is always doing something on purpose or trying to get over. It seems to me that is much more logical that he left it in there by accident than it is for me to believe that he knew his bag was going to go through an x-ray machine and try to quote” sneak it on. That defies logic to me. Why would you think that you could. Human nature? Generally people do things they think they can get away with and irregardless of what you say. TSA shortcomings are the perceived reality. Is that a gun in your bag? Is going to show up on the x-ray machine so I don’t think I would perceive a chance of getting away with that so I wouldn’t do it on purpose
If you are a *responsible*, *careful* gun owner, you know where your guns are at all times. But this wasn’t a simple case of stupid absent-mindedness — he admitted he knew why the cops were talking to him. Fine him to the max allowable.
Count me among those who think it’s an innocent mistake. Humans are prone to errors of failing to note that an intended action was not taken. Every so often we see this show up as baby left in the car and cooking–it’s never they forgot about the baby, it’s that they forgot they hadn’t dropped the baby off. The only way you can actually ensure is checklists or having explicitly separate things. We recently got a lesson this from that leak to a journalist–they weren’t using explicitly separate systems for sensitive information, human error lead to it going where it shouldn’t.
But then he just grabs his bag and walks onto the plane? Clueless! And TSA saw it but didn’t intercept it? Clearly, it’s security theater, not real security.