Yakima Airport To Hire Police As Guards Next Month

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Story Published: Feb 18, 2008 at 6:12 PM PST

By Maria Medina

YAKIMA -- The Yakima airport plans to hire police officers to watch over the terminal more than a month after it lost federal funding that paid for security guards.

A pair of grenades in a man's luggage put the Yakima airport on lock down Sunday, and put the terminal's security -- or lack of -- to the test.

"This is the tightest security of most airports I go through," said Pam Cleaver, a frequent Yakima flier.

Security is tight once you get to the checkpoint, but before that and you won't see anyone in uniform.

Transportation Security Administration stopped paying for the airport security guards last month when it found out the guards didn't have arresting powers.

And since TSA officials can't make arrests, they call for help, like they did Sunday.

The call about the grenades came into 911 came in at 11:52 a.m. Yakima police arrived 3 minutes later.

Even though police arrived quickly, Arturo Silva believes all airports should have security.

"No matter what, even a bus station, everywhere, you know, we need...some security," Silva said.

"There should be a policeman here all the time, on-duty," said Sydney Thaxton.

Both were at the airport waiting for relatives to come in from a flight.

There's a police substation just a couple hundred yards from the airport, but officers aren't there most of the time because they check-in and are out on the streets.

As for the man who brought the grenades, police said he's in the military and the grenades didn't have explosives in them.

Federal authorities will look into whether he could face any charges.

"I think the chance of that (a security breach) happening are very remote," said Cleaver, who ranks the Yakima airport as one of the safest in the country. "These guys (TSA) look through everything...and you'll get picked randomly...and they look through your things, so maybe they don't have arresting powers but they do look through everything."

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