November 17, 2001

7:17 AM

Some people are so lazythat they’ll hold up the busiest airport in the world for 3 hours, rather than be inconvenienced. Is this a sign of social breakdown, this inability to follow the rules of civilization, or am I just a curmudgeon? Or both?
posted by jpburns (40 comments total)

in flexable rules. they should roving security/concierge to attend to people whom have forgotten things, are sick, need help.
posted by clavdivs at 7:35 AM on November 17, 2001

Asked why the guards didn't physically stop him, Collins said, "They don't have the authority to touch any passengers. They can only sound an alert."

Is this to prevent the possibility of a lawsuit? They should have the authority to physically restrain someone trying to enter such a high risk area. Once again it seems financial concerns are placed way ahead of security concerns.
posted by dlewis at 7:42 AM on November 17, 2001

Um, how is this guy lazy?

Obviously, he expended more effort to slip security then he would have if he'd just waited in line.

and obviously, he didn't realize his actions would cause the airport to be shut down and himself arrested, Although I don't think that running away from security guards in an airport after 9/11 seems very intelligent.

But I still don't see how you could call it 'lazy' perhaps 'impatient' or 'stupid', but not lazy.

Oh, and btw, if this guy were a terrorist, he could have picked up a gun or something from behind the security checkpoint.
posted by delmoi at 7:44 AM on November 17, 2001

This is a sign that people like this genius are self-absorbed, totally lacking in common sense, and living in an instant-gratification fairyland where slight inconveniences are viewed as an affront to their god-given right to do whatever they feel like doing at any given time.
posted by MrBaliHai at 7:46 AM on November 17, 2001

MrBaliHai:

Yup! What I said; lazy. (Clearer delmoi?)

... also inconsiderate, self-centered, and a pig.

I hope they throw the proverbial book at him.
posted by jpburns at 8:00 AM on November 17, 2001

Hell, let's just execute the guy and have done with it. No fuss, no muss, and everybody learns a valuable lesson, plus there's one less bastard wandering around.
posted by aramaic at 8:39 AM on November 17, 2001

Suspect didn't know fuss was about him, from today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The guy was thoughtless, but the authorities look clueless.
posted by Carol Anne at 9:03 AM on November 17, 2001

The guards are supposed to get a good description of anyone who breaches security and call for assistance, which they did, Collins said. If they give chase, he said, "you leave one of the two areas unattended."

Ok, I stand corrected on the lawsuit front. Also it seems from the second article that at least they did a very thorough check of the area after the security breach.
posted by dlewis at 9:16 AM on November 17, 2001

I think its a sign that some people are as dumb as rocks, and need to go to prison for a long, long time. I live in Atlanta, and while I wasn't at the airport yesterday, I'll tell you that this clown caused quite a tizzy around here. I really just hope they don't let him off with a slap on the wrist...
posted by spilon at 9:50 AM on November 17, 2001

It sounds more like concern for losing a piece of equipment (the camera) combined with the stress of getting back to the gate in time for the flight leading to bad bad judgement. I think it goes a bit far say he's fundamentally lazy or that this is symptomatic of an addiction to instant-gratification.
posted by holycola at 10:28 AM on November 17, 2001

Um, isn't the larger story the fact that someone could get past security guards so easily? Imagine what an ideologically or religiously driven person could do. I know that football is (no joke here) akin to religion in the South, which to a large degree explains the guy's impatience and determination to get his camera. The Ole Miss-Ga. game should be a good match, and at this point is 7-6 Ga. Also, he probably paid a lot for the camera, and that means money wasted, and money is, or at least can be, akin to religion in America. But we're not talking Mohammed Atta here. Just somone who sounds like he should be one of those imbalanced southern characters on one of Randy Newman's '70s albums, or at least a Farrelley Brothers movie.
posted by raysmj at 10:30 AM on November 17, 2001

I hate sports, and to a lesser extent, the people who allow them to throw their priorities all out of whack.
posted by tpoh.org at 10:44 AM on November 17, 2001

he was headed to our football game this weekend. you can imagine the pride we have on the UGA campus for this fool. i hope they ban the jackass from any further games. apparently, even the stock market dipped at the news of the closedown.
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2001

not to mention the fact that he forgot his camera somehwere in the airport. It sounds to me like he couldn't find it when he went back to the plane? oh, just an unattended bag laying around the airport. Not gonna worry about that now, I GOTTA SEE THE FOOTBALL GAME. lazy in the brain, indeed!
posted by darkpony at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2001

Yup! What I said; lazy. (Clearer delmoi?)

Yes, it's clearer now, clearer that your WRONG.

MrBaliHai said: "self-absorbed, totally lacking in common sense, and living in an instant-gratification fairyland ... god-given right to do whatever they feel like doing at any given time."

And I agree with MrBaliHai entirely. BUT THAT DOSN'T MAKE HIM LAZY.
Lazy means a specific thing, and not any of those. Lazy just means someone doesn't do something because they don't have the willpower or don't care or whatever. This guy expended a lot of energy to do what he did, he wasn't lazy.

When I read your headline I had an image of someone falling asleep on the runway or something. A lazy person can be thoughtless and cause problems for others, but only as the result of INACTION!

If you're going to use words, at least learn what they MEAN!
posted by delmoi at 10:59 AM on November 17, 2001

Throw the book at him. No, make that the whole library. I don't think the guy was stupid, he obviously knew what he was doing was wrong which was why he ran. He's just selfish instead and didn't care about anything other than his stupid camera case and himself.

Let's face it, someone who is concerned about making a flight will do what any normal adult does, and SHOW UP EARLY!!. I'm so sick of hearing about these idiots. Punish someone for once, and maybe they'll think twice before doing it again.
posted by Jubey at 10:59 AM on November 17, 2001

I don't see why the security people are saying that they wouldn't have shut down the airport if it hadn't been for September 11. Evacuating the concourses after a security breach appears to be standard procedure.
posted by raymondc at 11:06 AM on November 17, 2001

Someone sarcastically mentioned executing the guy. Actually, I think it would be a good idea. This guy caused enormous inconvenience and suffering, all because he was so selfish and uncaring about other people.

How many people missed weddings because of this jerk? How many people missed funerals? How many people were on their way to hold a dying loved one's hand before death? How many business deals were scotched?

Kill the bastard.
posted by Holden at 11:07 AM on November 17, 2001

The airport shuts down, air traffic nationwide is delayed, the stock market drops; all because this yutz forgot his camera and felt football was more important than airport security.

I have found again and again, people can be completely and totally self-centered and arrogant. Some people think the entire world revolves around their sole existance, and should they become inconvenienced, then the world should bow down before them to make sure they are happy.

People like him are no new news though. I don't know how many people I have yelled at while crossing the street at a lighted intersection, and they have the nerve to either pull up right next to me waiting to turn, or they will even honk their horns at me. Or in line at stores, people will try anything to get in front of you, simply because they feel they shouldn't have to wait.
posted by benjh at 11:13 AM on November 17, 2001

Delmoi:
Yes, it's clearer now, clearer that your WRONG.
...
If you're going to use words, at least learn what they MEAN!
-------
Shouldn't that be “you’re wrong?”
If you’re going to to use words, at least learn how to spell.

Petty? Yes, but no more petty a point as the one you were making about the precise definition of “lazy.”

My point of discussion was that someone couldn’t be bothered to stand in line for security, that the rules didn't apply to him. He was a lazy member of society, as he didn't bother to follow the mutually agreed to rules of civilization, i.e. he didn’t wait his turn in line.
posted by jpburns at 11:47 AM on November 17, 2001

Was this guy lazy? Were the terrorists cowardly? Semantics! What's important is that this schmendrick is being held up for ridicule! Ahh, sweet, sweet schaedenfreude!

(Chief Wiggum voice:)
Finally we get to the root of the problem: Football, just as I suspected all along. Take 'im away, boyz.
posted by Ty Webb at 11:55 AM on November 17, 2001

Shouldn't that be "you're wrong?"
If you're going to to use words, at least learn how to spell.

He didn't misspell, he was just being lazy. Get it right, jpburns!

With regards to Mr Lasseter, I do prefer the attribute of stupidity than that of lazyness or selfishness, though. Not just your average stupidity, but stupidity of Darwin-award proportions.
posted by dlewis at 12:15 PM on November 17, 2001

While we're at it, let's also execute fog and slippery runway conditions, because they keep us from reaching our dying family members in time! And weddings!

Selfishness is not a crime. Failing to think about what you're doing is not a crime. Trying to slip through security checkpoints is. Prosecute him for that, but I don't believe it's a capital offense.
posted by Hildago at 12:15 PM on November 17, 2001

From the [first] article:
"It's impossible to not see the irony, the fact that Senator Cleland was caught in the middle of a security breach the day that he spoke from the floor about the critical need to upgrade security at our nation's airports," said Patricia Murphy, the senator's spokeswoman.

This pisses me off- that's not irony! I'm so sick of people misusing the word irony... A coincidence, sure, but not irony unless, say, the Senator was there for a ceremony initiation the airport's brand-spankin' new state-of-the-art security system that would "make this the most secure airport in the nation". That would be irony, for fawk's sake.

As regards to the crime and punishment of the man: what he did was stupid and thoughtless, but the airport chose to have that excessive reaction- evacuating the airport and all those delayed flights was their decision, and I can only hope Holden and others are joking when they call for his execution (and I really hope Holden recognizes the irony of his calling for his death because the guy was "uncaring about other people". See, that's irony, folks).

I'm reminded of an incident here in Seattle a few years ago when local performance artist Jason Sprinkle was commissioned by Job Corp to create a sculpture for their 25th anniversary, for which he created a huge metal heart. Job Corp rejected it, so out of protest Sprinkle put the heart in the back of a Job Corp truck, drove it to the middle of Westlake Center- the "heart" of downtown- and left it there. The truck had graffiti on it: 'Timberlake Carpentry Rules (the Bomb)!"' Timberlake Carpentry was another Job Corp organization that had put that slang on the truck a couple of years prior. A local cop, apparently not familiar with the slang "the/da bomb", instead saw it as another Ryder truck full of fertilizer, and downtown was shutdown for the next 4 1/2 hours (I was working at the nearby Bon Marche at the time up in data processing, and was evacuated as were others in a 9 block area). After realizing they vastly overreacted, the DA and Police couldn't back down and admit they'd made a mistake, so they kept trying to prosecute the guy to justify their initial reaction. They also used this scaremongering to justify taxpayer purchase of that sweet new bomb-sniffing robot they had their eyes on for a while.

The moral of this story is that you can't control another person's reaction, and while this guy should have expected he'd be chased and strictly prosecuted for violating security rules like that, he shouldn't have expected that the entire airport would be shutdown and evacuated. That's NOT a reasonable reaction, unless you're one of these nutballs that figured out 9/11 was a scapegoat to unleash your previously latent psychotic authoritarian paranoid fantasies.
posted by hincandenza at 12:54 PM on November 17, 2001

I hope he sees the next 15 UGA Mississippi games from jail.
posted by prodigal at 1:39 PM on November 17, 2001

this guy gives Georgia fans a bad name..

there have been many examples of discriminatory and outrageous abuses of the heightened state of alert at airports since 9/11 but this is not one of them. he did breach security, he did (so far as I can tell) either run past or shove aside a security guard, dodging the guards' attempts to stop him or even talk to him, to get onto the concourse. Hell yes, they needed to assume he was up to no good. what if he did have a gun? or a box cutter, even. it's good he turned out to be just a dumbass instead of being malicious but the authorities couldn't have known that was so.

I find it absolutely delicious and fitting that his plane took off before the airport shutdown, but he missed it anyway. I don't know about locking this guy up forever, but I hope he's learned a valuable lesson. :>
posted by Sapphireblue at 2:13 PM on November 17, 2001

I was in my car returning home (Atlanta) from a trip to New Orleans when I heard this story on the radio. I had chosen to make the 2 hour drive to Birmingham to avoid the Hartsfield mess (thank goodness). This idiot caused 5000-10,000+ people to be severely inconvenienced not to mention the monetary cost of having to feed yourself and your family in the airport possibly overnight. Maybe the airport officials overreacted, but, if he had been a terrorist and they hadn't shut it down we would be saying they were stupid.

I think a proper punishment would be to encourage those people to instigate a civil suit against this man for lost time and money. A previous post equated this with fog or slippery runway, but this incident unlike weather was preventable.

If they don't want to sue maybe they could all be allowed to give the guy one swift kick it the ass!!!!
posted by bas67 at 2:44 PM on November 17, 2001

(and I really hope Holden recognizes the irony of his calling for his death because the guy was "uncaring about other people". See, that's irony, folks).

There's nothing ironic about claiming to care about other people in general and also wishing death to a SPECIFIC person.
posted by HTuttle at 2:50 PM on November 17, 2001

I can't believe you people. You're kidding right? People wanting to see this guy executed? This is an example of where we as human beings are told to put our freedoms on hold in the interests of security. It's one thing to talk the talk. This gentleman was asked to walked the walk. He failed. Could you do better?

Ever drive in a car without your seatbelt? You just committed the same "crime" that this person did. The government tells you to do something for your own security. Wear a seatbelt. Stand in line and be scanned or searched. Stop your car when the police sirens are behind you. Pay your taxes. Wait three days to pick up your gun purchase. Each of these "inconveniences" and so many more are examples of sacrificing freedom in return for security. We walk a fine line every day.

These are not things which we are each given the option to choose to follow. These are orders which we are to carry out, or suffer consequences. That's the sacrifice we each make every day, in little ways, to preserve the illusion of freedom. Small prices to pay, in return for the blood shed over the centuries. "Inconvenient" is a small price to pay.

However, make no mistake, that guy running down the up escalator could just as easily have been YOU. Personally I can't stand football so it's hard for me to comprehend his impatience there, but his brain mathematically calculated whether he could go back for the camera case and still make it to the plane. He could, but only if he didn't wait through the security check point a second time. He'd already been inconvenienced once that day. Logically in his mind, he'd already paid his price.

What if you were standing in that corridor in the airport, with ten minutes on the clock before your plane leaves. You DID arrive early. You went through all the security protocols like a good little American. However, you accidently left a handbag behind. Maybe not a camera. Maybe something of more personal importance.

Maybe you're going to a funeral, or a wedding, or something more important than a football game. Do you honestly think that would make a difference to armed guards? Be it sports or a bahmitzvah, the military and airport security aren't going to care. You'd still be expected to go through the security checkpoints a second time, and therefore miss your flight despite the fact you did everything you could to do the right thing.

The solution here is not to boil this guy in oil to make an example of him. That'd be like cutting off the hand of every thief and castrating every rapist. In fact, I believe that's what they do in parts of the Middle East, isn't it? It doesn't deter criminal activity. It just increases fear and decreases freedom.

The solution is that our airport security system should have procedures and contingencies in place. When a person finds themselves missing a bag, or otherwise needing to go back through a security checkpoint after having already done so, they should be able to alert any airport employee, and instigate some procedure. Members of security could search for the parcel, verify that it's not a bomb or other malevolent property, and then return it to the person or insure that it will be shipped to him/her after they arrive at their destination.

America should be a country of solutions - NOT punishments. Otherwise, we're no better than the enemy.
posted by ZachsMind at 3:01 PM on November 17, 2001

I can't believe you people.

Apparently you can. Maybe you shouldn't.
posted by rodii at 3:31 PM on November 17, 2001

Sorry but someone forgot to toggle the sarcasm tag. =P
posted by ZachsMind at 3:36 PM on November 17, 2001

<intense sarcasm>But if we don't get to watch football, then they win...</intense sarcasm>
posted by owillis at 5:41 PM on November 17, 2001

Hey, at least Georgia found someone who can run through others' defenses....
posted by darren at 7:19 PM on November 17, 2001

The solution, of course, is to boil the man in oil. Any rational person can see that.
posted by aramaic at 8:00 PM on November 17, 2001

Aramaic shoots and scores!
posted by spilon at 9:18 PM on November 17, 2001

What if instead of that stupid loser it had been O.J. running through the airport... you know, like he used to for Hertz?

WWOJD? ("What would O.J. do?") Of course, we know O.J. would get away with it!

Seriously, they ought to make that stupid loser reimburse everyone who was evacuated the full price of their tickets... that might make him think.
posted by blackholebrain at 9:28 PM on November 17, 2001

The airport shuts down, air traffic nationwide is delayed, the stock market drops; all because this yutz forgot his camera and felt football was more important than airport security.

I think this tells more about idiots at the market than idiots at the airport. As far as his running goes, obviously you don't run on a plane and think everything is cool like getting a touchdown. I think he just freaked out and suggesting putting him away in prison for one mindless act that only inconvenienced others and hurt no one is the only real stupid thing here.

This is post 9/11. Airport articles will be entertaining for years to come.
posted by skallas at 11:03 PM on November 17, 2001

Hartsfield security stepped up. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Sunday coverage (in case anyone is interested in information, rather than invective).

An excerpt: "We were making it up as we went along," Hartsfield General Manager [Ben DeCosta] acknowledged Saturday. 'We thought we had too many people for the terminal. There was no way we could have some in the terminal and some outside. The only way we can do the crowd control is to have everyone out. Because we had good weather, it worked for us.' The design of the airport, he said, with its single security checkpoint for all concourses, meant that the entire airport had to be closed...One shortcoming revealed by the evacuation was the lack of communication in the airport."
posted by Carol Anne at 4:29 AM on November 18, 2001

However, make no mistake, that guy running down the up escalator could just as easily have been YOU.

Um, sorry, but while I am guilty of being only about 99.9 percent compliant seatbelt-wise, I've never run down an up escalator (or vice versa).

I agree with the point you're trying to make, ZachsMind, but it's one thing to not bother buckling your seatbelt and another entirely to bolt from security guards who just issued you a warning and then proceed to run the opposite way on a moving escalator, thereby committing a security breach.

(And it was a security breach: while Lesseter himself had gone through a security checkpoint earlier, his camera bag hadn't.)

Now, if you'd added to your not-bothering-to-buckle-your-seatbelt analogy holding up the uncoupled seatbelt buckle and waving it at police officers with one hand, while flipping off said police officers with the middle finger of your other hand, that'd be more like it -- because that's more akin to what this moron Lesseter did.

I think authorities will make an example of him, and I think they should. Not that prison time is warranted, IMO, but there should be some sort of appropriate penalty (community service?) to punish him and to send a signal to others that the FAA is serious, if indeed they are, about their "zero tolerance" stance. (A stance that was announced not even two weeks ago in response to, remember, that fool at O'Hare who tried boarding with seven knives and a stun gun.)

(BTW, I also think this guy has opened himself up to a flurry of civil lawsuits brought by inconvenienced fellow travelers -- so much so that I almost feel sorry for the guy.)
posted by verdezza at 12:09 PM on November 18, 2001

"However, make no mistake, that guy running down the up escalator could just as easily have been YOU. "

"Um, sorry, but while I am guilty of being only about 99.9 percent compliant seatbelt-wise, I've never run down an up escalator (or vice versa)."

Which is roughly what I was going to say. It's one thing for kids in the mall to be playing like this on an escalator - though I think even there security guards will eventually stop them - but in an airport? Um, is it just me, or can we all assume that you'd have to have been living in a cave NOT to know that even minor infractions like running the wrong way on an airport escalator is going to attract attention? Hasn't the 11th made everyone super sensitive (bad or good) about what goes on in airports? So even if he wasn't running around a security check he knew he was doing something stupid. But then, you're not a rocket scientist if you leave your camera bag behind - like someone noted earlier - unattended bags are also a no no. Not to mention that most people tend to pay attention to more expensive items they're carrying, like cameras...
posted by batgrlHG at 1:45 PM on November 18, 2001