It wasn't a gun or a knife. It was a weighted bookmark.
Kathryn Harrington was flying home from vacation last month when screeners at the Tampa, Fla., airport found her bookmark. It's an 8.5-inch leather strip with small lead weights at each end.
Airport police said it resembled a weighted weapon that could be used to knock people unconscious. So the 52-year-old special education teacher was handcuffed, put into a police car, and charged with carrying a concealed weapon.
She faced a possible criminal trial and a $10,000 fine. But the state declined to prosecute, and the Transportation Security Administration said it probably won't impose a fine.
Harrington said she'll never again carry her bookmark into an airport.
WOW, Homeland Security saved the day one more time! I'm thinking the book could do more damage than the 'bookmark', books are terribly dangerous, paper cuts, sharp corners to jam in eyes and depending on the thickness, one could thump the living hell out of someone if they really wanted to. Maybe the bookmark reminded the security guards of a past flogging incident, hmmm. [link via DB]
