Passenger At Tampa Airport “TIA” Found With Hidden Box Cutter In Book
February 20, 2008 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
A Clearwater man trying to board a Southwest Airlines flight was arrested over the weekend after airport police found a box-cutter knife hidden inside a hollowed out book, according to airport officials.
21 year old Benjamin Baines was attempting to go through a security checkpoint inside Concourse C Sunday around 7:30 am when a TSA screener saw the knife inside his backpack, according to his arrest report. A search of the backpack found the knife inside a hollowed out book called “Fear, Itself”
After initially telling airport police that his cousin had made the hidden compartment, Baines later admitted he had made it, according to the report. Baines told police he made the compartment to hide his money and marijuana so that his roommate wouldn’t steal it, police say. Baines told airport police he forgot the box cutter was inside the book, according to the report.
Baines was charged with carrying a carrying a concealed weapon. A Bible, Koran, and other religious books were found as well as several pages of rap lyrics that Baines had wrote, according to the report.
Baines explained that the lyrics, which referenced police, narcotics, weapons and killings, were “lies” and that rap music writers have to play the part, according to Baines’s arrest report.
