Man caught trying to bring a loaded gun through Newark Airport security
Click here for updates on this story
NEWARK, New Jersey (WFSB) — A Connecticut man tried to bring a loaded handgun through Newark-Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.
The Transportation Security Administration identified the man as 58-year-old Keith Fredlund of Sherman, CT.
The incident happened on Tuesday.
The TSA said Fredlund had a 9mm handgun loaded with 13 bullets in his carry-on bag.
The gun was found when the bag went through an x-ray machine at the airport’s Terminal C.
Port Authority Police were alerted and Fredlund was arrested on charges of unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of hollow point rounds.
Along with the charges, the TSA said the man also faces a stiff federal financial penalty for bringing a gun to a security checkpoint.
Nationwide, the TSA said it detected 3,257 firearms on passengers or their carry-on bags at checkpoints last year, although the total number of passengers screened at airport checkpoints across the country fell by 500 million compared to 2019 due to the pandemic. The result was that twice as many firearms per million passengers screened were detected at checkpoints in 2020 compared to 2019. In 2020, TSA caught approximately 10 firearms per million passengers as compared to about five firearms per million passengers in 2019. Of the guns caught by TSA in 2020, about 83 percent were loaded.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
