Man threatened with arrest at Heathrow for wearing Transformers T-shirt

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Evening Standard

An airline passenger claimed that a security guard threatened to arrest him because he was wearing a T-shirt showing a cartoon robot with a gun.

Brad Jayakody, 30, from London, said he was stopped from passing through security at Heathrow's Terminal 5 after his Transformers T-shirt was deemed 'offensive.'

The IT consultant was set to fly off on a business trip to Dusseldorf in Germany when he was pulled to one side.

Mr Jayakody said the first guard started joking with him about the Transformers character depicted on his French Connection T-shirt.

'"Then he explains that since Megatron is holding a gun, I'm not allowed to fly,' he said.


Read more: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23489284-details/Man+threatened+with+arrest+at+Heathrow+for+wearing+Transformers+T-shirt/article.do

---

Idiots!

[tuvor]

1. Not only is it merely a picture of a weapon on his t-shirt...

...but it's a picture of an imaginary weapon.

[tom_paine]

9. Imaginary? Don't let Optimus Prime hear you say that.

"I will vaporize you with my "imaginary" weapon!"

[kenny blankenship]

2. Well this is good news in a way

I thought it was only America that had completely lost its fucking mind, but it turns out we will have company on this trip after all.

[Raster]

6. LOL!

[Fox Mulder]

3. Oh Christ.

What is this world coming to???

[raystorm7]

4. You guys missed it! He looks Muslim and is carrying a black bag?! HE's a damn TERRORIST!

The t-shirt just gave them an excuse. I guess he didn't dress white or American enough =)

[dipsydoodle]

13. As far as I'm aware he's English.

I saw him interviewed on our main TV news - London accent.

Some nosepicker at Heathrow overdoing what he believes to his job I guess. I concluded long ago that most of them are uniform freaks who should find a less harmful fetish.

[grace0418]

35. Accents don't matter. Skin color does.

Terrorists are encouraged to blend in and become as westernized as possible, which gives security goons an excuse to stop anyone they see that remotely fits some "profile."

I was born and raised in the U.S. and I am half-Greek, half-Euro-mutt. I've been mistaken for Italian, Mexican, and Middle Eastern. There was a period of several years that my bag was searched EVERY SINGLE TIME I flew. Each time they would claim it was entirely random but I find that hard to believe.

Kal Penn (Kumar from Harold & Kumar) told a story recently about always getting stopped at airports. He's INDIAN and has no trace of accent. One time he was traveling with a white friend who forgot about a HUGE hunting knife he had stashed in his carry-on bag. Kal got stopped and searched but his white friend with the hunting knife sailed through security.

[dipsydoodle]

41. Sad world isn't it.

Here in the UK it's not as bad as you describe over there - fortunately.

[grace0418]

42. Fortunately. But man, I agree. It's a sad world.

I hope we can right this ship before it's too late.

[conspirator]

58. That's why I hate airports these days. I feel like a criminal as soon as enter departures n/t

[maxidivine]

44. He looks like a nerd to me

And his occupation seems to support that impression, and so does his taste in clothes/entertainment.

They are really stretching over on Airstrip One aren't they? I wonder what sort of population finds it acceptable to bar someone from boarding a plane and threaten them with arrest over a t-shirt with a cartoon robot on it?

[Mojambo]

5. Well, in all fairness, that movie did blow chunks. n/t

[DRoseDARs]

8. May Megatron step on you and squash you into a flat and bloody mess, infidel.

;)

[Occulus]

27. Nice CG animations though. n/t

[tridim]

30. True, but the CGI didn't.

[Jack_DeLeon]

65. That movie was awesome...

and you blow chunks, whoever that is. lol.

[The Animator]

7. Ok, couple problems with this...

1. '"Then he explains that since Megatron is holding a gun, I'm not allowed to fly,'

That is clearly not Megatron... that is Optimus Prime... Anybody who knows anything about the Transformers would know that.

2. In the 1st Generation of Transformers Megatron was a gun, he didn't hold a gun, he had a forearm mounted cannon.

3. He looks more Asian than Middle Eastern... maybe Thai. Or hell even Hawiian.

[raystorm7]

11. Because he can't distinguish between Megatron and Optimus Prime, he deserves to go to Gitmo =)

[The Animator]

67. No.. I don't think he should go to Gitmo for not being able to tell Optimus from Megatron.

That's only a Pop culture misdemeanor, easily understandable after his ordeal.

I am a huge fan of the 1st amendment, so this kind of crap gets me riled up..

It could just as easily have been a shirt featuring Vader with his light saber.

I mean, this is even dumber than that blowout with the MIT student who made her own light up nametag.. and everyone on the news called it a "fake bomb" like she purposefully made it with the intent to scare people. When in reality, this completely innocent device was presumed to be a bomb by idiots who have only ever seen a bomb in the movies.

[phrenzy]

10. wtf - Megatron IS a gun! (nt)

[rambler_american]

12. Do you feel safer now?

On Monday, Marnina Norys, a 39-year-old PhD student of social political thought at York University, was forced to remove a piece of silver jewelery cast in the shape of an antique pistol by airport security in Kelowna, B.C., who feared the trinket posed a security risk to the passengers on her WestJet flight.

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/433917

On a recent flight from Manchester NH to Chicago my wife was pulled aside and had a small bottle of hand lotion confiscated. I, on the other hand, had inadvertently left in my pocket my car keys with a fob that included a knife just the size of a box cutter attached. I carried it all the way to Chicago. Can't be too careful. My wife could have sprayed that hand cream all over a flight attendant and softened her skin.

I used to love flying. Now I hate the long security lines, taking my shoes off, pulling my laptop out of the bag, and so on. It's bullshit! If the so-called shoe bomber had put a bomb in his BVD's instead we'd all have to strip down to prove we weren't carrying a bomb in our shorts. The terrorist have won.

[liberal N proud]

14. Meanwhile the real terrorist are happy

They have succeeded in instilling fear and terror in the lives of all.

Image of imaginary characters carrying imaginary guns, when did that become illegal?

[14thColony]

26. This is exactly the point!

Terrorist seek to instill fear, doubt, and anxiety. Our actions have ensured their success.

[OhioChick]

15. Transformers?

:wtf: is this world coming to?

[BrklynLib at work]

16. Is it something in the water, or the air..or do they go out of their way to hire morons for these

jobs?

[crim son]

18. Where are they going to find highly intelligent people

to man the x-ray machines for eight hours at a stretch?

[raystorm7]

19. X-ray machines are bad for your health and braincells I'm sure =/

[BrklynLib at work]

20. Sad, isn't it? THe security of everyone traveling is in the hands of minimum wage employees.

The priorities are soooo screwed up. "Homeland Security"..what a joke. All it has turned out to be, much like the war in Iraq, is a money-making venture for the cronies of BushCo.

These are the positions to which our National Guard units could have been deployed instead of to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other places to which BushCo speechified about "bringing freedom and democracy". :puke:

Obviously greed knows no bounds. The underlying philosophy of everyone in and around Bush is basically, "I've got mine. Screw the rest of you". Of course this applies to the big corporate entities as well. Social Darwinism at its best. :puke:

[crim son]

28. Yep,

I agree with everything you've written.

[Gman]

17. Actually...

Elias: Since God created man, and man created the Transformers, the Transformers are like a gift from God, Randal!

Randal Graves: No sir. They are not a gift from God. They are an unholy curse from the beast we call the Desolate One.

[carrowsboy]

21. I never have this problem.

When I fly, I always make sure I wear my JEM & The Holograms tee.

"Showtime, Synergy!"

[Bread and Circus]

22. That's Optimus Prime. The incompetence of those guards!

[HatoriHanzo88]

23. I'll tell you whats offensive about weapons

SEE! I just posted a response about the media in the UK telling people when to be offended on the subject of Dick Cheneys comment about West Virginians and incest. Here it is again; this topic of "offensive" subjects in the British media.

People are becoming oppressed by the government, the media, and even the people of society as they suck up all the crap like this every day they become part of the oppression. It disgusts me, how can a transformers t-shirt be offensive? Plus- What gives a security guard the right to say what is offensive and what isn't? Is he some sorts of spokes-person for the passive morons that are glued to The Sun and The Daily Sport every day of their god forsaken lives?

I have seen this sort of idiocy in a number of cases throughout the UK media AND the UK Government.

I'd like to send a message to Gordon Brown concerning this topic, and let him know that a transformers t shirt displaying a gun, is far less offensive than the mass murder/genocide and illegal war in Iraq he seems to love so much.

[iverglas]

45. the UK is just a few years behind the times

How soon we forget.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2173150.stm

Monday, 5 August, 2002



A doll caused a security alert at an American airport because its two-inch plastic gun was considered a dangerous weapon.

Judy Powell, 55, from Walton on the Hill, Surrey, bought the GI Joe toy in Las Vegas and packed it in her hand luggage.

But security staff at Los Angeles International Airport refused to let Mrs Powell on board the plane with the replica rifle.

Mrs Powell had to put the gift - minus the rifle - in her suitcase so it could go in the aircraft's hold.

... "If GI Joe was carrying a replica then it had to be taken from him."

It disgusts me, how can a transformers t-shirt be offensive?

Of all the things I can think of that disgust me ... well, let's just say I probably wouldn't get to this one until about 2027.


Plus- What gives a security guard the right to say what is offensive and what isn't?

How about: the rules that s/he is instructed by his/her employer to apply?

Is he some sorts of spokes-person for the passive morons that are glued to The Sun and The Daily Sport every day of their god forsaken lives?

Are you, like a lot of people I've seen weigh in on this topic, just a bit of an élitist with something against wage labourers doing their jobs?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7431640.stm

"If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it, for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it," <an airport spokesperson> said.

"We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category.

"If it's offensive, we don't want other passengers upset."

Their business, their premises, their choice, I'd say. If airport authorities or airlines don't want their users upset, and they think any of their users might be upset by a graphic depiction of a large firearm on the chest of a passenger with whom they are confined in the air for several hours, they get to require that it be removed.

Of all the things I can think of to work up a tizzy about ... well, let me know when 2026 rolls around, and I'll start preparing.

[daleo]

50. It is a picture of a cartoon character

And a well known cartoon character directed at 12 year olds. I simply cannot imagine any passenger getting upset by that. Anybody who was afraid of a picture like that, would probably be too afraid to fly anyway. I can't imagine such a hypothetical person making it through a day without fainting from fear.

[iverglas]

52. the empathy just drips around here

It may be a well-known cartoon character directed at 12-year-olds that any child or under-60 adult living in an industrialized western country would be familiar with. (Actually, I'm in that class, and I only know about these things from vaguely recalled sightings of references to them ...)

The airport in question is an international airport. Not all users of the airport are in that class.

Not everyone in the world knows what a Terminator or whatever the hell the thing is, is. Really.

On the face of it, the image, and the thing it depicts, is grotesque and menacing, and a proportionately very large firearm features prominently in the image. If someone did NOT know what it was, and I think anyone with an imagination really can squint hard and imagine a person who did not know what it was, it could be confusing.

It could perhaps be particularly confusing to a person who had spent time in a place where people with weapons that resemble the image were really not toys, and did not bring happy playtime with them, in whose mind the response to the image would not be "haha, that whats-is-name, he was pretty funny in that movie", or whatever it is we're all supposed to think when we see that image.

Not everybody spends their lives absorbing USAmerican pop culture. Some people have had more pressing problems and more important things to think about than the pointless exploits of fictional robots with guns for arms.

Myself, I just don't see the need to risk causing distress to people who have had enough of it in their lives. And if the possibility that I might cause them distress hadn't occurred to me, I still don't think I'd act like a child having its candy taken away because somebody asked me to change my fucking Tshirt before getting on an airplane.

Cripes. Isn't there a Republican pedophile around somewhere that we could all get all indignant about?

[BronxBoy]

53. Well......

Not everyone in the world knows what a Terminator or whatever the hell the thing is, is. Really.

And not everyone understands that a Singh (sp?) may be different from an Arab, especially those of a terrorist bent.

So it's OK if they get harassed?

[iverglas]

54. what the fuck was that supposed to be?

If you feel the need to spew moronic dishonest noise somewhere, maybe you could turn your head away from my posts. I feel all slimey now.

[daleo]

55. I think you're reaching here

Every culture has imagery that can be disconcerting, that has violent overtones or contains images of weapons. People from around the world are used to those things. Furthermore, they understand that shirts can't be used as weapons. You should give people more credit.

The airport security person's reaction was over the top. I doubt if he was concerned about the effect of a T-shirt on other passengers.

Suppose an airline security official denied entry to someone who had an image of Che Guevara on a shirt, on the basis that Che was a violent revolutionary. Or how about a black power salute image, on the basis that people might find the image of a large upraised fist to be threatening. Even sports team T-shirts could be interpreted this way (the Tampa Bay Buccaneers feature a death's head, for example). Many more examples come to mind.

Denying people the right to travel, based on a picture on a T-shirt (especially a cartoon watched by kids) is dangerous.

For the record, I think people ought to dress up a bit when they fly, but that's just me.

[iverglas]

57. I think you're backpedaling furiously

I think what you said:

It is a picture of a cartoon character
And a well known cartoon character directed at 12 year olds. I simply cannot imagine any passenger getting upset by that. Anybody who was afraid of a picture like that, would probably be too afraid to fly anyway. I can't imagine such a hypothetical person making it through a day without fainting from fear.

was so obviously ethnocentric and ignorant that you need some way to justify it.

More attractive just to acknowledge that you hadn't thought it through, and reacted like all the other knee-jerk "liberals" at the idea that someone might have to suffer the enormous interference with his personal liberty involved in changing his shirt out of consideration for the people who were about to be forced to be in his company for several hours if they wanted to exercise their own liberty.


Denying people the right to travel, based on a picture on a T-shirt (especially a cartoon watched by kids) is dangerous.

He wasn't denied the right to travel.

He was instructed to change his shirt if he wanted to travel in that manner.

And if you seriously think that's "dangerous" (even where 'that' is so self-servingly and ethnocentrically characterized by you, yet again), you've lived one hell of a sheltered life, or just spend too much time gazing at your own navel and worrying about when somebody might come up with something to ripple the calm waters of your privileged existence.

To read this place, you'd almost think there were no women being mutilated or enslaved or children of colour dying of preventable diseases or having their limbs amputated by warlords in this world. Rights are what belong to western men with pictures of gunz on their Tshirts whom someone is just lying in wait to try to oppress.

[daleo]

60. His shirt has no bearing on the things you mention

"women being mutilated or enslaved or children of colour dying of preventable diseases or having their limbs amputated by warlords in this world."

Honestly, how does his shirt affect any of these things?

[iverglas]

61. honestly

Honestly, how does his shirt affect any of these things?

who said it did?

What I wonder is how a bunch of navel-gazing "liberals" working themselves into a lather about someone having to change his shirt before boarding a plane affects them.

[daleo]

62. I guess "liberals" are just like that

We just don't like people making us change our shirts.

[iverglas]

63. which would be why I'm not a liberal

I prefer to spend less time gazing at my own navel and worrying about what I might not be able to wear over it if I want to get on an airplane, and more time worrying about other people's body parts being severed from their bodies.

I guess we know where we stand now.

[daleo]

64. It is possible to care about both

It isn't an either/or thing.

[EstimatedProphet]

24. This is what bad media coverage about guns gets you

Security guards can no longer distinguish the difference in threat between an imaginary gun and a real gun.

[Ichingcarpenter]

25. Transformers... More than meets the eye. Transformers....

Something evil's watching over you (Homeland Security
Comin' from the sky above
there's nothing you can do

Prepare to strike
There'll be no place to run
When your caught within the grip
Of the evil Megatron

Transformers
More than meets the eye
Transformers
Robots in Disguise

Strong enough to break the bravest heart
We have to pull together
We can't stay worlds apart

To stand divided we will surely fall
Until our darkest hour
When the light will save us all

Transformers
More than meets the eye
Transformers
(Terrorists) Robots in Disguise
Transformers

Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of
The Decepticons

[AngryAmish]

29. Those energon cubes are NOT stable

There is no way they should be on a commercial aircraft.

[central scrutinizer]

31. An IT guy who is also a Transformers fan?

I'll bet he is a real scintillating conversationalist at parties. Imagine what they would find if they searched his cubicle.

[Kerrytravelers]

36. ... or searched his bedroom!

:wow:

These techy guys into cartoons... you never know!

:rofl:

[fascisthunter]

32. Over-react much?

a fucking cartoon character holding a gun keeps one off a plane? Me thinks security is using their job to censor rather than make people feel secure.

[MrsBrady]

33. ok...every body down....this is a stick up

I have a picture of gun. nobody move.

[mikeytherat]

34. "Just give me a picture of the money, and no one gets hurt!"

:rofl:

mikey_the_rat

[daleo]

56. Best comment in the thread. n/t

[moc]

37. Oh no! My 5yo son can't fly anymore!

At least, not until his obsession with Transformers passes. God knows, until then, he is a threat to the safety of the flying public.

:eyes:

[Javaman]

38. ...

:banghead:

[asthmaticeog]

39. Maybe he intended to hijack a t-shirt with a picture of a transformer that turned into an airplane.

Ever think of that? Huh? Huh?

[windoe]

40. Just trying to prevent thought crimes

and it actually appears this guy is committing some thought crimes in this photo--guilty I say.

[redwitch]

43. He should have worn his Kittimus Prime shirt instead.

silly man!

[Deja Q]

46. Wow. His gut is bigger than mine and I'm rather older than he is!

:wow:

Idiots, possibly, but paranoia on the airport's part isn't exactly unwarranted these days...

[skoalyman]

47. And later on today airport security save untold numbers

when a man carrying a book with untold number of weapons of mass destructive pic's :nuke: :wow: in it
later that day homeland security gave the guy a metal for his heroic actions :puke:

[Bush_MUST_Go]

48. All US air travellers should try this pic on a t-shirt

[Haole Girl]

49. That's a weird story. nt

[InvisibleTouch]

51. I'm sorry, but that's not Megatron. n/t

[polticalpout]

59. I think there is More Than Meets The Eye to this story.

:-)

I'm guessing the security guard rubbed the guys label and it showed he was a decepticon.

[Divine Discontent]

69. HA! good post title! :)

that was clever!

I can see how some might freak out if they could EVEN decipher that it was a GUN, it's a pretty wild looking design that most would look away from... it's not like it's a photo of RAMBO on there holding a giant machine gun!



New Obama Items Weekly - The Good Stuff!
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[fujiyama]

66. Heathrow is a Goddawful airport

Flying out of there proves to be a shitty experience almost every time. Their security personnel are incredibly rude and obnoxious...and they seem dumb as fuck to boot. I had a sweatshirt on and he said, that had to come off. He claimed it was a jacket. Fucking ass holes.

We're playing catch up with the Brits when it comes to a real police state.

[Truth2Tell]

68. For some reason this video comes to mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7AWw7t5zj0

Cracks me up every time.

WARNING: those unable to grasp satire will find this misogynistic and otherwise offensive.