Airport Guard Is Fired After Attack on Ex-Gov. Wilder
An airport security guard shoved and choked former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder as he tried to board a flight from North Carolina to Virginia early Tuesday, Wilder and airport officials said.
The attack occurred when Wilder, unhappy with his treatment when he set off a metal detector, tried to read the guard’s name off his identification badge, said Rick Martinez, spokesman for the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
The guard was fired, Martinez said. Neither Globe Security, his employer, nor the airport would identify him Tuesday.
Wilder told listeners to his radio program on WRVA-AM that metal bars on his suspenders triggered the metal detector.
When he tried to explain, the guard told him to “turn around and get up against the wall, I haven’t quite finished with you.”
Wilder said he decided to report the guard.
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