"Shreveport Regional employees subjected to random screening"

Title:

Saturday, April 7, 2007

Shreveport Regional employees subjected to random screening
By Joel Anderson
The Shreveport (LA) Times

 

Nearly everyone must subject themselves to airport security checks at Shreveport Regional Airport. Even the screeners are being screened.

Employees at the airport have been undergoing random searches by the Transportation Security Administration for several months as part of the agency's mission to improve security at airports across the nation.

"This has been happening at every airport behind the scenes for six months," said Andrea McCauley, a regional spokeswoman for TSA based in the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. "It's part of our multilayered approach to security."

Every day, at randomly selected access points, some of Shreveport Regional's 800 employees must submit to a security check before entering one of the airport's secure areas.

Ronald Cottie (right), a Shreveport Regional Airport employee, undergoes

a random search by Felix Williams, a Transportation Security Administration officer.


TSA, which was created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, conducts the searches separately from the Shreveport Airport Authority.

"We're just there to support whatever they do and work with them," said Bill Cooksey, spokesman for the Shreveport Airport Authority.

TSA essentially created the random screening program following the August discovery of an alleged terrorist plot to detonate explosives on planes travelling from Great Britain to the United States. The program started at 20 airports before expanding to others in the fall, according to TSA.

But in recent weeks, the TSA announced it would conduct "surge operations" at airports in Orlando, Fla., Tampa, Fla., Miami, Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood, Fla., and San Juan, Puerto Rico, following a major security breakdown at Orlando's airport.

More than 150 transportation security officers, aviation security inspectors, federal air marshals and other personnel have deployed to enhance security efforts at those five airports.

That measure followed the arrests three weeks ago of airline workers accused of smuggling guns aboard a commercial airliner at Orlando International.

Shreveport Regional is not undergoing nor should expect a "surge operation" but McCauley said the TSA's commitment to improving screening procedures for airport employees remains the same.

"You can tie them together," McCauley said, "because it's something we've been doing to reduce insider threats at airports."

During an employee security check at Shreveport Regional earlier this week, three TSA employees set up just inside an automated gate that led to a parking lot.

For about an hour, the TSA employees inspected just two employees -- the only two who came through the gate -- by essentially performing the same sort of check airline passengers must endure: the employees emptied their pockets into a container, went through a brief frisking and showed their identification cards.

"It can kind of slow us down," said Ronald Cottie, a certified agent trainer at the airport. "But it's pretty much the same. It's not a problem."

McCauley said the random checks shouldn't cause delays for airline passengers.

"We're reminding passengers that we are constantly adding security regiments that aren't visible to the average passenger," she said. "Some people see the checkpoint and might assume that's the beginning and end. But it's not."

 

Article Comments

 

SHV Regional Airport Police-- Here's the problem.

Sat Apr 7, 2007 5:02 pm

The TSA base at Shreveport is very poorly run, but worse run is the Shreveport Regional Airport police. After the TSA leaves it is anything goes with the Shreveport Regional police force. I have seen kids go past a closed TSA check point and end up at a gate to greet an arriving passenger while a Shreveport Regional police officer chats on his cell phone clueless to the world around him. Then Shreveport Regional Airport Authority installed a mall store chain like barrier between the elevators and the restaurant, but that did not stop one Shreveport Airport Authority policeman from inviting passengers behind the secured mall like barrier. Roy Miller, airport manager, still keeps this employee on the airport police staff. Posted by shvtraveler

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