Signature Flight Support Staffers Accused of Cleaning Out Soldiers' Bags

By ANN Senior Correspondent Kevin "Hognose" O'Brien

Three young men who worked for Signature Flight Support at Baltimore-Washington International Airport have been charged with stealing valuables from checked baggage on international flights. Prosecutors say they had a taste for easily fenced high-value items like laptops, digital cameras and video game systems.

Signature has a contract to handle baggage for the Air Mobility Command (AMC) of the USAF. The AMC is responsible for bringing soldiers overseas, especially to the combat theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers have long complained of baggage thefts, and have largely been given the usual military sympathy: "Suck it up and quit whining, troop." After all, who would steal stuff from a soldier bound for the combat zone?

Anne Arundel county prosecutors think they have a pretty good idea: Shakia Watson, 20, and Michael Harlee, 22, both of Baltimore; and Derek Murray, 20, of Glen Burnie. The three men are charged with stealing hundreds and hundreds of items from overseas-bound bags during a period from November 2003 to November 2004. Watson was charged in January; Harlee and Murray, last week.

Investigators say Watson's car and the three men's homes yielded a stash of over 200 stolen items, according to police. There's no word on what Maryland law has in store for the accused, if they're convicted of the charges, but one thing's for sure: the judge won't be offering them the old "join or jail" deal. It's been years since the services took young men in that kind of trouble.

(Disclaimer: I passed through the AMC terminal at BWI in November, 2002 -- a year before the period of thefts alleged here -- and I got to the war with all my stuff. I heard other guys complain about thefts, though)

FMI: www.signatureflight.com