Second Atlanta airport breach: Man bypasses TSA security checkpoint, police say

ATLANTA – For the second time this month, particulars a couple of main safety breach at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Worldwide Airport are rising. This time, officers say the person acquired previous the safety checkpoint and onto the concourse.

Authorities say the person, Adonis Murray, made all of it the best way to the entrance door of a airplane earlier than a suspicious pilot turned him round.

Solely ticketed vacationers, staff, and approved airport workers are presupposed to be on one of many airport concourses, so authorities are questioning how the Macon man was in a position to make it to this point.

Officers say Murray allegedly went as much as the preliminary level of safety and on the checkpoint, he walked proper in with out offering ID or a boarding go.

Atlanta police physique digicam video reveals officers confronting Murray simply after 1 p.m. on Jan. 6 in entrance of the TGI Fridays situated on the south finish of the T Concourse.

Officer: “Did you undergo a checkpoint, sure or no?”

Murray: “Sir…”

Officer: “I’m listening…”

Murray: “I really feel like I’m being harassed proper now.”

Officer: “You’re not being harassed.”

Murray: “There’s by no means been an issue”

One officer tells Murray they noticed him three hours earlier asking him for assist.

Murray would ultimately be cuffed and searched.

“I feel it’s a matter of slipping by way of intentionally,” former Clayton County Solicitor Keith Martin stated when requested the way it occurred.

Martin is not any stranger to airport incidents, having dealt with a whole bunch of airport instances all through the years. He has provided insights into earlier airport infractions previously and presents his knowledgeable evaluation on this newest breach.

“Whereas that individual could possibly be learning a doc, for 3 or 4 seconds, somebody might slide by way of that line, apparently, and did,” stated Martin.

Atlanta police launched this bodycam video to FOX 5 displaying Adonis Murray speaking to officers on Jan. 6, 2023. (Atlanta Police Division)

Officers say as soon as he previous the doc checker, Murray waited for his belongings, clothes, to make it by way of the bodily screening and went right down to the escalator.

Authorities say Murray walked to the T gates, and as professional vacationers had been boarding, he went onto the jet bridge, however a suspicious pilot turned him round.

The Transportation Security Administration, which is accountable for screening passengers on the safety checkpoint launched an announcement studying:

“TSA is investigating the incident additional with our legislation enforcement companions, and native TSA officers are trying into methods to enhance visibility and strengthen enforcement round doc checks stations.”

The TSA didn’t disclose how lengthy that overview would happen, however the former Clayton County Solicitor shared his ideas.

“A second set of eyes would in all probability be at the very least 100% simpler,” Martin weighed in.

Murray was booked into the Clayton County Jail on fees of felony trespass.

This breach got here simply hours after police arrested a person for hopping the airport’s fence. 

Man arrested after police say he jumped the fence in a hyper-secured space of Hartsfield-Jackson, stole two airport automobiles and boarded a airplane. (Provided)

Terence Stewart climbed over the razor wire fence earlier than getting on a Delta automobile and driving it across the airport, police say. 

He then boarded a Southwest airplane, got here nose to nose with an worker within the cockpit of that airplane, deplaned after which discovered one other automobile to drive, investigators say. 

He was in the end stopped by Atlanta police round 3:40 a.m., and charged with trespassing and taking two Delta vehicles.

Investigators haven’t commented both means on if the 2 incidents had been associated.