Busted by the Feds!

How could a nice, clean-cut lady like my wife find herself busted by federal agents at an international airport—on weapons charges? Heeheehee, let me tell you.

As missionaries who have to travel a lot to raise lots of money to support the overseas ministry, we were on our way to Buffalo, NY to speak at a big church. Or so we thought.

The TSA security line where the rubber-gloved inspectors sing out the monotone, “All keys, coins, cell phones, laptops, anything metal--all MUST come out!”

They already had our keys and cell phones in the gray plastic bins. Our carry-ons were in the “oven”. We were waiting for them. Waiting and waiting. Two scowling TSA agents pointed their fingers at the X-ray monitor screen.

Lydia, my wife, was sure it was my carry-on that was the hold up. I always drag around a myriad of electronic gadgets with all their cables, power supplies, docks and batteries.

Nope….not this time. It was HER bag. The bag of missionary curios she didn’t want to get broken. No shrunken heads or snake skins in there, but lots of trinkets from the countries where we had worked. Little woven baskets, prayer cards, wood carvings, flags……and two machetes!

In the hotel room, the night before our flight, I had casually reminded her. “Now, Honey, don’t forget to take those machetes out of the carry-on before we go through security tomorrow.” She didn’t.

The TSA guys and the uniformed Indianapolis Airport Police were chattering on their walkie-talkies. In seconds, out of nowhere, the plain-clothes feds in their suits and ties surrounded us. One of them approached me and said, “Uh, just so you’ll know, this is probably going to be a pretty big deal.” He was right!

“Mam, you’re going to have to come with us.”

As the law enforcement entourage escorted us down the shiny-tile-floored hallway, the green and brown Starbucks sign seemed to mock me as I went by. Even a 600-calorie cappuccino could not help now.

I walked beside the uniformed Indy Airport cop that had made the arrest.

He casually said, “There is a new law on the books here in Indianapolis, that hasn’t been tried in a court of law yet.” (This was three years after 9-11)

“Oh, dandy,” I thought to myself. “They have an air-tight case against my wife carrying these two machetes and she readily admitted that they were hers. We will be the ones to “set the court’s new precedent.””

As we tried to avoid all the ogling eyes, we passed a couple cops on foot patrol. They saw the two big machetes in the arresting officer’s hand—the “evidence.”

“Hey looks like you got you a good one today, Charlie!” they taunted.

Entering the airport police station, the interrogation began. Officer Charlie filled out a generic pink arrest report form, asking Lydia her name, address, date of birth, SS number, etc.

Forty-five minutes later the real doozey of an interrogation began. The grey-suited, former FBI agent now with TSA Law Enforcement (We’ll call him Richard) flipped open his wallet in the typical “just-the-facts-Mam” way, showing a shiny silver TSA-LE badge.

His first words were,” Now I don’t mean to insult your intelligence Mam, but what on earth were you thinking?”

Without any fear, Lydia looked him in the eye and replied, “I guess I wasn’t thinking very well. I just forgot and left them in there. I didn’t think anything about it.”

There followed a string of pressing questions. What work do you do? Where are you going? What are you going to do there? Why are you carrying machetes into a weapons-restricted area?

On that last question Lydia came up for air. “I just never have thought of them as weapons.”

“Well, how do you think of them then?” Richard tested.

“Well, I use them in my kitchen and to work in the yard. Not as weapons.”

“Well Mam, if it had been a gun, would you have considered it a weapon?” Richard pressed.

“Well, yeah, Lydia said, “but they’re not guns.”

Lydia was taking all this so innocently and calmly that I was afraid she was blowing it with the investigator.

She kept saying to me, “Nothing will happen. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”

Every time I countered by saying, “You didn’t mean to do it, but you DID!. That’s the problem.”

In an attempt to help, I tried to explain what Lydia had meant with one of her verbal statements.

Richard looked at me and firmly said, “This would be a real good time for you not to say anything.”

“Sorry, Sir.”

As the probing went on, it became obvious to G-man Richard that Lydia had truly forgotten about the machetes and had no criminal intentions. When he finished writing up the statement from Lydia, she took his pen and signed it.

Hoping we were done and would be released, Mr. Richard informed us that the two people sitting off to the side of the interrogation table were representatives from the federal office of Civil Aeronautics. He explained that Officer Charlie had made the arrest, that he, Richard, was TSA Law Enforcement and that the other two deal with the “civil side”.

“This is not only a criminal issue but also a federal civil issue,” Richard concluded. More scary words for sure.

The Civil Aeronautics people moved to the table to have their shot at Lydia. Their interrogation was much shorter but, reminded us that Lydia could go to prison as well as pay a hefty fine for the civil violation. The CA guy, Chris did have a slight smile as he talked with us and seemed kind.

During the interrogation process, the Crime Scene photographers hovered over our little red roll-aboard that had carried the machetes, snapping photos from all angles. One funny moment was when they tried to re-construct the placement of the machetes “as they had been when discovered.” They arranged them criss-crossed in the suitcase and then asked us, “Something like that?”

Click, flash, click, flash-- the tampered-with evidence was documented.

After about an hour and a half, the three law enforcement agency reps told us we were free to catch a flight out. We were released under “non-custodial” arrest.

Finding our way out of the drab confines of the investigating room, Lydia and I walked slowly toward the first seating we could find. Lydia pulled along her red roll-aboard with all our missionary curios inside—all except the machetes. They were now confiscated “evidence.”

We began to shake and cry. Nothing like this had ever happened to us before. Lydia had never even had so much as a traffic ticket. Now she was under arrest on federal weapons charges!

CHECK BACK IN A FEW DAYS FOR THE PART 2!