Butchered-Up Security

Frickin’ awesome:

NEWARK, N.J. - A security screener at Newark Liberty International Airport failed to spot a butcher knife in a passenger's pocketbook and was removed from the post for retraining, officials said.

Katrina Bell, 27, had cleared security and was waiting with her sister to board a flight on Saturday morning when she discovered she was carrying a knife.

Bell had put the knife in her bag "just in case" before going on a blind date earlier that week, her sister and travel companion, Tikisha Bell Gowens, 30, said in The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark.

Okay, I’m going to go ahead and skip over the oddity of carrying a butcher knife on a blind date, no less the perhaps even greater peculiarity of having forgotten it was in there, because although that’s some bizarre shit, it’s not really the point of this story.

The North Carolina women immediately told airport personnel, who summoned police and officials of the Transportation Security Administration, which employs the screeners.

The women were not charged.

The screener was removed from the checkpoint and will undergo remedial training, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said.

Remedial training? No. Unacceptable. That idiot should have been canned on the spot. Why is it that no one, in even the far reaches, the lowest echelons, of this administration, seems to be held accountable for anything anymore?

I suppose the only thing worth losing one's job over these days is a grievous lapse in judgment like putting a Kerry bumper sticker on your car.

On Saturday, officials asked Bell to go through security again with the knife in her pocketbook. It was discovered during the second check.

So the remedial training will really help, because you can train someone right out of laziness and indifference.

"Suppose someone else had this knife and their motive was to hijack the plane?" Bell Gowens said. "Come on, now. We had a butcher knife. How do you miss that? How many years do you need to get this right?"

Oh, Ms. Bell Gowens, I certainly hope you’re not intending to impugn the integrity of the Transportation Security Administration.