Who's supposed to stop suspicious airline passengers?

An HPD officer has been transferred to desk duty in a disagreement over who was responsible for letting a man with a non-bomb board a plane at Hobby Airport recently. It happened June 26, when a man "with a Middle Eastern name" and a ticket for a Delta flight to Atlanta told airport screeners he didn't have a laptop in his baggage, though an X-ray machine indicated he did. Screeners searched the man's bags and found a clock with a 9-volt battery taped to it and a copy of the Quran; the screeners also found that the soles of the man's shoes had been hollowed out. No explosives were found on the man, but a TSA screener reported that "the shoes had been tampered with and there were all the components of (a bomb) except the explosive itself."

HPD officer J.O. Reece was called over to question the man. He checked his ID, the shoes and the clock and cleared him to get on the plane. The TSA screener notified Delta and talked to Reece again; Reece said he wasn't able to do a background check on the passenger because of computer problems. When a TSA screener told Reece that the guy looked like he was ready to carry a bomb, Reece replied, "I thought y'all were trained in this stuff."

While the man was on his way to Atlanta, the TSA called the FBI in; agents examined the passenger in Atlanta and called the situation a "non-event." Since then, there's apparently been some disagreement between the TSA and Houston police over who should have done what: The TSA says it relies on local police to help detain suspicious passengers, while HPD says its officers are not supposed to serve as "gatekeepers" in airport security. Meanwhile, Houston police union lawyer Chad Hoffman said Reece doesn't understand why he was put on a desk job: "It seems clear from the onset of the investigation that he didn't have probable cause to detain anybody and that his actions were consistent with the law and HPD policy," he said.