The Maryland Transportation Authority Police have been providing armed escorts at taxpayer expense to sports celebrities and other VIPs when they board commercial flights at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
The curb-to-plane escorts enable the celebrities to avoid long lines at security gates, allowing them to arrive as little as half an hour before a flight. The practice began shortly after Gary W.
Typically, government officials supply their own armed security when they pass through airports. The service at BWI also appears to duplicate some functions of the Maryland State Police, which has a special unit to guard the governor, lieutenant governor and other high-ranking state officials.
Several past and current members of the force called the VIP escort program at BWI a major distraction from their primary duty of providing security at the airport. He said that in some cases, officers were pulled off their assigned posts and had to wait at gates for more than an hour for arriving celebrities. One beneficiary of the escort service is former Baltimore Orioles star Cal Ripken, who has received such escorts at least 18 times since , according to documents released by the transportation authority yesterday after a public records request by The Sun.
Russell N. Shea Jr. A former Baltimore police officer, Shea moonlights doing security work for Ripken and his private firm, Ripken Baseball Inc. When Ripken returns, an officer frequently meets him at the gate and takes him to his SUV. She is founder and owner of Professionals on Request Ltd. Hock said there is no connection between the escorts and her representation of Murray, a member of the Hall of Fame.
