Attendant’s escape aided by privileges, security lapses
LOS ANGELES — Within hours of ditching 32 kilograms of cocaine at a security checkpoint and bolting barefoot out of the main Los Angeles airport, an off-duty flight attendant was flying across the country after clearing security at the same airport, law enforcement officials said Friday.
Marsha Gay Reynolds, 31, did not do anything out of the ordinary to get back on a plane, officials said, describing how she used an airline badge with her real name to board another flight the next morning at one of the nation’s busiest airports.
Communication lapses, bureaucratic protocols and special security privileges afforded airline workers all contributed to Reynolds’ remaining out of the grasp of law enforcement until she surrendered four days later in New York.
“This is a security breakdown. That could have easily been an explosive device and a terrorist running from the checkpoint. And we wouldn’t have known until it went boom,” said Marshall McClain, president of the union representing LAX airport police officers.
Reynolds’ escape was another embarrassing error for the airport, which sought to enhance security after a gunman opened fire in a terminal in 2013 and killed a Transportation Security Administration agent.
Reynolds was off duty when she arrived March 18 at an LAX checkpoint, wearing jeans and a black suit jacket and carrying her “known crew member” badge, according to an FBI affidavit filed in support of the charge against Reynolds.
When Reynolds was chosen for a random security screening, TSA officers reported that she became nervous and made a phone call in a foreign language before she dropped her bags, kicked off her heels, ran down an upward-moving escalator and out of the airport.
Police found 11 packages of cocaine wrapped in cellophane inside one of the bags Reynolds left behind, the affidavit said. The drugs had an estimated street value of up to $3 million.
Reynolds, a former Jamaican beauty queen and university track athlete, faces at least 10 years in prison if convicted of the federal drug charges.