"Celebrities Using BWI Get Armed Police Escort"

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Celebrities Using BWI Get Armed Police Escort
By Michael Dresser
The Baltimore (MD) Sun


The Maryland Transportation Authority Police have been providing armed
escorts at taxpayer expense to sports celebrities and other VIPs when they
board commercial flights at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood
Marshall Airport.

The curb-to-plane escorts enable the celebrities to avoid long lines at
security gates, allowing them to arrive as little as half an hour before a
flight. The practice began shortly after Gary W. McLhinney was appointed
chief of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police in 2003, according to
past and current officers, though McLhinney asserted that he had merely
"enhanced" a continuing program.

He said the six-member executive protection unit was designed not to cater
to celebrities but "to avoid any disturbances in the airport."

McLhinney's predecessor, Larry Harmel, denied that transportation authority
officers routinely provided escorts to celebrities -- as opposed to foreign
dignitaries or high government officials and their families -- during his 6
1/2 -year tenure.

Officials from airports in such cities as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
San Diego, Seattle, Houston, Washington and Orlando, Fla., said they know of
no standing arrangements under which sports or entertainment celebrities
receive an escort from an armed officer in the absence of a specific threat.

"We have priorities that need attending to that we would consider a little
more important," said Pasquale DiFulco, spokesman for the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey, which operates John F. Kennedy International, La
Guardia and Newark Liberty International airports.

Typically, government officials supply their own armed security when they
pass through airports. For example, the Secret Service protects members of
President Bush's family when they pass through BWI. Baltimore police
generally escort Mayor Martin O'Malley and his family.

The service at BWI also appears to duplicate some functions of the Maryland
State Police, which has a special unit to guard the governor, lieutenant
governor and other high-ranking state officials.

Several past and current members of the force called the VIP escort program
at BWI a major distraction from their primary duty of providing security at
the airport.

Charles "Rick" Spinks, who worked as a transportation authority police
officer at BWI until late 2004, said he personally provided such escorts
many times that year and in 2003. He said that in some cases, officers were
pulled off their assigned posts and had to wait at gates for more than an
hour for arriving celebrities.

One beneficiary of the escort service is former Baltimore Orioles star Cal
Ripken, who has received such escorts at least 18 times since 2003,
according to documents released by the transportation authority yesterday
after a public records request by The Sun.

Ripken's spokesman, John Maroon, said that when the retired ballplayer is
about to fly out of BWI, he or one of his associates routinely puts in a
call to Lt. Col. Russell N. Shea Jr., the department's chief of operations.

A former Baltimore police officer, Shea moonlights doing security work for
Ripken and his private firm, Ripken Baseball Inc., with McLhinney's consent.

Shea then orders an armed police officer to meet Ripken at the parking
garage and escort him to the airline's gate. When Ripken returns, an officer
frequently meets him at the gate and takes him to his SUV.

Another recipient of escorts, though far less frequently, is former Oriole
Eddie Murray, a client of Shea's girlfriend, Diane B. Hock. She is founder
and owner of Professionals on Request Ltd., an Ellicott City firm that
represents athletes. Hock said there is no connection between the escorts
and her representation of Murray, a member of the Hall of Fame.

Murray said the escorts were not provided at his initiative. "I'm not the
kind of person who would request them," he said. Sometimes, he said, they
showed up to meet him after he had told Hock of his plans to fly in or out
of BWI.

Similarly, Maroon emphasized that Ripken has never demanded special
treatment. In previous years, before McLhinney and Shea went to the police
agency, Ripken would direct his escort requests to the airlines, Maroon
said.

"This isn't something that Cal ever requested. It was something that was
offered to him," Maroon said of Ripken, who writes a weekly freelance column
for The Sun.

Shea said he "disagrees with that statement" but declined to elaborate.

It was unclear how comprehensive a picture of the escorts the documents
reveal. Some other celebrities that McLhinney said had received police
escorts at BWI -- including Ray Lewis, John Travolta, Bruce Springsteen and
Rosie O'Donnell -- were not mentioned in the logs.

McLhinney said his police don't necessarily fill out forms on everybody who
is given an escort. He said celebrities can receive escorts from his
officers regardless of whether there is an actual threat. "We don't base our
escorts on threats. We base it on the individual," the chief said.

One reason many airports hesitate to provide escorts to sports and
entertainment celebrities -- as opposed to government officials or foreign
dignitaries -- is that it would put officials in the position of deciding
who qualifies as important enough.

Nancy Castles, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles International Airport, said
celebrities "receive no special services from airport police whatsoever."

David Marks, who has operated a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based celebrity
protection business for 30 years, said police agencies have no business
competing with private companies that offer such services. In particular, he
said, they are not qualified to decide who is deserving.

"Who's to say who make up the A list?" he said. "Today they're on the A
list. Tomorrow they're on the B list. What about three years from now?"

McLhinney said the decision whether to provide an escort is based on whether
a particular celebrity was "high-profile." He said he leaves such decisions
to the commander at the airport, who reports to Shea.

"We would do [former Ravens player] Deion Sanders all the time ... because
Deion's high-profile," he said. "A non-high-profile person wouldn't call
us."

McLhinney said he has known about Ripken's escorts and his employment of
Shea and sees no conflict of interest.

"The fact that he works for Cal doesn't concern me because it's off-duty,"
the chief said. McLhinney said he, too, did some work for Ripken before
taking his current job.

Maroon said any work Shea does for Ripken is covered under a confidentiality
agreement and his compensation from his secondary employment with Ripken is
"minuscule."

"You couldn't buy a car with it," he said.

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