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Nov 25, 2008 10:00 pm US/Central
Drunkenness A Common Crime At DFW Airport
Reporting
Jack Fink
DFW AIRPORT (CBS 11 News) ―
Thousands of us will be heading to the airport in the next couple of days. Whether we're catching a flight or picking up loved ones. But before you head out, you might want to know what records show are the top crimes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
We're not talking about security violations or even luggage theft. Police reports show the most common crimes DFW Airport are Public Intoxication and Driving While Intoxicated or DWI.
It's a side to DFW you rarely see or hear about. At all hours of the day, airport police are busting people for drunk driving and for public intoxication, inside the airport terminals.
Ryan Morrin is catching a plane back to New York and says there's nothing wrong with having a drink. "Just have a beer," the traveler said. "It cuts down on anxiety a little bit. Not that I have much to begin with."
But airport records show some airline passengers, and those who drive in and out of DFW Airport have had too much to drink.
Officers say many of those arrested for DWI don't even know they're in the airport.
Early Sunday morning, officers pulled over one man for suspicion of DWI. In that case, police didn't file charges and let the driver go.
In a highly publicized case last August, airport police arrested the superintendent for the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, Annette Griffin, for DWI. Griffin has declined comment.
Police reports show Public Intoxication and DWI are the most common crimes at DFW Airport. Since July 1 through last Friday, airport police have arrested a total of 85 people for DWI and Public Intoxication.
Cindy Smith, another airline passenger says, "That's kind of surprising to me. It's not something I ever experienced, and it was not something in my experience today."
Lonny Glover is the safety and security coordinator at the Association of Professional Flight Attendants – a group representing some 19,000 American Airlines' flight attendants. He said flight attendants in the association don't see cases of drunkenness on a daily basis.
But Glover says he's not surprised by the numbers of people arrested for Public Intoxication at DFW Airport. He also points out that if passengers are drunk before boarding, they won't land on the plane, but in a jail cell. "If an airline knowingly boards them, there's a $25,000 fine they have to pay. So that's one reason I don't think passengers understand that's the reason we're not allowed to board them on the aircraft," he explained.
Sometimes, passengers start out sober, and then have too much to drink onboard.
Last December, the FBI arrested a minor league hockey player who became drunk and out of control on a flight to DFW Airport. A federal judge sentenced that player to one year in prison after he slapped a male flight attendant in the face, head-butted an off-duty pilot, and exposed himself to fellow passengers.
Pilots and flight attendants unions say misconduct onboard is on the rise. "After 9/11, most passengers' behavior was very reserved. The passenger's misconduct dropped significantly, but now with the stress levels and the economy, it's starting to pick back-up," Glover said.
Airport police wouldn't comment about the problem on-camera with CBS 11 News, but say with a land area larger than the island of Manhattan, and with 164,000 daily passengers, and thousands of others who pick-up and drop off passengers, DFW Airport is no different than most other big cities.
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