Posted on 01/05/2010 2:43:18 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) - The suspicious material found inside luggage that prompted the shutdown of a California airport Tuesday morning turned out to be five soft drink bottles filled with honey, authorities said.
A passenger's suitcase tested positive for TNT at Bakersfield's Meadows Field during a routine swabbing of the bag's exterior, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said. When TSA officials opened the bag, they found bottles filled with an amber liquid, he said.
"Why in this day and age would someone take a chance carrying honey in Gatorade bottles?" Youngblood asked. "That itself is an alarm. It's hard to understand."
Investigators said the bag's owner, Francisco Ramirez, 31, is a gardener from Milwaukee who has been cooperating with authorities. He flew to Bakersfield Dec. 23 to spend Christmas with his sister and was returning Tuesday when the alarm sounded.
When TSA agents opened one of the bottles and tested the contents, the resulting fumes nauseated them, Youngblood said. Both were treated and released at a local hospital.
"It's encouraging that the system did work, because something is not right there," Youngblood said. "The system worked the way it was supposed to, but it just takes time when you close an airportand it costs a lot of money."
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
OK, so I can sort of understand taking the guy’s honey, and maybe even detaining him or removing the ‘suspicious’ honey from the airport to be extra-safe... but I’m not getting why they SHUT DOWN the airport. Clearly, if they actually thought the honey was some kind of bio/chemical weapon, they shouldn’t have opened it inside the building.
Damn those Gatorade bottles...took a chance.....foiled again...ut I need so much....
Bingo.
Honey fumes? Honey fercryingoutloud! Could you imagine the hysteria if it had been peanut butter?
Sometimes Mom actually is wrong...LOL!
I am assuming this was raw honey, or it wouldn’t have been in Gatorade bottles. Pasteurized honey (which is what you get in the supermarket) is safer. And any honey is okay once you’re not an infant, SFAIK.
.....and of course this caused a couple of workers to become sick and require that they go to the hospital. Can you say gummint mammary suckers....
A great way to get the rest of the day off.
"I sneefed dees water bottle and dee water fumes made me deezy. I need to go to hopickle!"
Our Federal Government in Action.
“Brown side out
Green Side Out
Run in Circles
Scream and Shout”
W
The power of suggestion no doubt.
The last time I flew there was a gal in front of me that had a bag full of some fancy jam and preserves samples. She was not too happy with having to give those up. And granted, with all the publicity about limiting “liquids” for carry-on that was dumb of her.
But putting that stuff in your luggage would not raise an alarm with me while I was packing. Except for the “I’m not so sure this honey in the bottles is such a good idea? What if it leaks or something?”
Of course then I would probably just grab the bailing wire and electrical tape to wrap them all up good and secure. And keep it away from my clothes. Probably put it in the plastic bag with the other stuff that I could just wipe any spillage off - like my alarm clock and spare batteries.
“Why in this day and age would someone take a chance carrying honey in Gatorade bottles?”
Perhaps this person visited a bee farm and got some honey and filled Gatorade bottles because he had them.
Always consider the least conspiratorial and simplest answers first.
What on earth was your lawn doing in your loafers!? ;-)
Maybe the passenger should have placed the honey in those cute bear shaped bottles.
Some people are so stupid, have no clue how people who grow their own stuff store them, or recycle stuff.
Maybe it is time for us to go green and start living how our ancestors did, working the farm. Supermarkets have truly dumbed down too many people. They are so disconnected from nature.
I don’t suppose it ever occurred to them to locate the passenger whose baggage it was and ask what was in the jars. I guess he’s lucky his stuff wasn’t taken to a remote part of the airport and blown up by the bomb squad.
There you go. Where are most TSA workers hired from? Of course the inner city (aka) the hood, the ghettos, the projects. And what do these TSA workers have in common with every illegitimate child born in the ghetto. Its simple its the training. From birth they are taught to live off of the man. So when a suspicious item such as a bottle of honey is found by one of these TSA workers they report being nauseated so they can file a claim. In the inner city the children are taught to act injured if their school bus or any other bus they ever ride on is in an accident even if it is just bumped into by a small car or a bicycle. Typically in the hood if a bicycle bumps into a school bus everyone even the bus driver gets rushed to the hospital.
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