Fri, Jun 24, 2005
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)
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