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.
TSA is a total joke. Everyone associated with this failure needs to be fired immediately. Where is the video? There are 3 dozen TSA staff standing around supposedly watching everything. Layers and layers of security. This should NEVER happen.
The passenger never should be allowed to fly again in the U.S. Take security seriously or don’t bother with it at all!
I have guns and love them but I also have separate bags for them. I never use those bags for travelling. Even then I always do a quick check to make sure there’s nothing in my bag before packing, ammuntion, magazines, etc. If you own a gun, be responsible with it FFS.
This guy should be banned from flying on ANY airlines. He obviously knew of the shift change and exploited it. All those TSA agents must’ve been asleep and all should be terminated
Let’s not forget the reason he was removed from the plane and arrested was because TSA discovered the gun in his backpack. Of course it would have been ideal if they had detained him at the checkpoint, but the system ultimately worked.
It’s widely known TSA misses a lot of weapons/potential weapons when tested, but anyone caught with a weapon faces criminal charges. That’s not perfect, but it is a deterrent.
TSA will make an incredible fuss about me bringing too many chocolate oranges for my family, but this guy gets to walk away with a gun in his bag.
Awesome. Wow.
At least they caught him, and nothing happened.