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What to do with valuable things when you fly?

annejjacobson2 Comments

Maybe leave them at home?







It doesn’t seem in fact as though ABC showed there’s a widespread problem, but their Facebook blog records claims about a number of cases of theft.

Another type of airport theft is supposedly also common, but one supposes the sums in the following from 1997 are not:

The FBI and Newark Airport cops are investigating the theft of more than $500,000 worth of jewelry from the wife of Houston’s mayor at an airport security checkpoint.
Elyse Lanier reported that her handbag, containing “various pieces of expensive jewelry,” was snatched from an X-ray machine conveyor belt Oct. 7, said Special Agent Ann Todd, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in Newark.
Lanier, who was on her way back to Houston with her husband, Bob, after a visit to New York City, told police she was victimized by three people as she put her handbag on the belt.
“She was distracted by a Hispanic male and then bumped into by another Hispanic male and female,” Todd said. “They pointed to an airline ticket jacket on the floor. She picked it up, and when she looked back on the belt, her bag was gone.”
Lanier immediately reported the theft. Sources in Houston put the value of the jewelry at $640,000.

2 thoughts on “What to do with valuable things when you fly?”

  1. This might be a bit of a tangent, but I’m getting more and more riled up about how we report on race and crime. It’s almost funny that the only information we have in the article you link is that there were two Hispanic men and a woman. Why does that even matter? Why not just say “three people”? And if we’re throwing in detail for its own sake, why not mention how tall they were? (I presume that’s easy enough to remember.) What kind of clothes were they wearing? Glasses? Hair color? Did they have accents?

    For a ‘colorblind’ society, we sure do have a weird penchant for talking about race when someone gets robbed.

  2. Stacey, in general I share your concern, but the statement was taken from a police report, as far as I can see. Eye witness recall of details is notoriously unreliable, but I suppose race is so salient for many – perhaps particulary a texas politician’s wife – that her recall here is likely to be true.

    Of course, the salience of race, along woth our interest in it, is part of the problem.

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