Editor;
Against my better judgement I’ve had to fly a few times on business during COVID and it hasn’t been fun. Long lines, cranky passengers, anti-maskers, etc. Every time I did it I hated it – so I just thought about 9/11 and how that had changed things for everyone and how I needed to be patient – they were keeping us safe after all.
Or so I thought. Then Malik Faisal Akram came for a visit.
This upstanding British citizen ranted about wanting to die on 9/11 – with the terrorists – and commuted from his temporary home country to Pakistan on a regular basis on behalf of a group dedicated to purifying Islam. I would have thought that would be enough to land you on some sort of Watch List – certainly in the UK if not in the US, and I have since learned that he was.
It didn’t matter. Because while I was getting patted down by a sweaty TSA agent in Dallas Malik was flying here on a valid visa, arrived at New York’s JFK International Airport and – in true American fashion – bought a weapon of some kind “on the street.” Two weeks later he made it to Texas, burst into a local synagogue waving his mystery gun and took four people hostage including the rabbi.
His own brother asked: “He’s known to police. Got a criminal record. How was he allowed to get a visa and acquire a gun?”
Good questions. Eleven hours later, with all those Foreign Office officials, MI6 people, FBI, TSA agents home and asleep in their beds – it was the Rabbi who threw a chair at the hostage taker and rushed for the exit with three others behind him, Akram probably so distracted he didn’t see the FBI SWAT team come in, drop a flash bang and then shoot him dead.
Who did their job here? I say the Rabbi, and you can argue that the FBI entry team did what it had trained long hours to do. Meanwhile those TSA lines get longer and I’m not feeling any safer. Are you?
Sincerely,
Derek Kaye/ Walnut Creek
Really makes you wonder doesn’t it. I’m retired now after a 28 yr LE career. I don’t fly a lot and didn’t prior to COVID either. I have been singled out numerous times by TSA for extra checks to include taken and searched in a separate area, even though I identify myself and present badge. I don’t travel armed as getting clearance to do so is a pain, and now that I’m retired I wouldn’t even try for clearance. On two occasions while still working I flew out of state for investigation purposes which required me to travel with my duty weapon. Even with all approved clearance I was checked and triple checked and treated with suspicion by TSA.
And if your wondering if I fit some profile, when I’m cleaned up people tell me I look like a cop. I have an inlaw that works in management with TSA and we’ve talked. A majority of their staff have no prior LE background..so yes I really wonder
I guess it’s not like they show it in the Bourne Supremacy — lights going off at the airport and stuff.
I’ve never been there but from what I understand it’s as easy to pick up a gun in Texas as it is to get a six pack. Did he get it there or in New York or somewhere in between?
Well, we’ll have to look at the Brits for why he was allowed to fly and TSA as to why he was not on a restricted list. As to the gun, exactly why every gun control measure is worthless, criminals get there guns on the streets and proper gun storage at home is important.. 108RS
Another large, unyielding bureaucracy and politics. I recall Senator Dianne Feinstein arguing to allow undocumented immigrants to be able to work at SFO after 9/11. Do we still take off our shoes bc of the one-time shoe bomber?
I read once that in tens of Millions of passengers flights, not once has a native citizen tried to blow up an airplane.
The FBI has a string of high-profile failures… Pulse Nightclub, Las Vegas, etc. And they played a roll in perpetuating the Russia Hoax, and there were numerous *leaders* of the Jan 6th Capitol protest that weren’t prosecuted.
No. Because the simple fact is that there is no perfect screening system. I fly a lot less now because of that fact.