Justice Cuts No Slack for Flier With Unintentional ‘Weapon’

This is a story about an airport, a pair of box cutters and a guy named Ernie. Since Ernie had the box cutters in an airport, you can probably guess where our story ends up. And where Ernie ended up.

If you guessed jail, you are correct.

Believe it or not, I can picture Ernie Miranda laughing about this someday. But after talking to him and his girlfriend, I’d say that day is quite some time off.

Right now, Miranda just wants someone to take his side, “for someone to listen to him,” as girlfriend Irene Stell says.

I was happy to do that, because his story is very much of these times. When all was said and done, Miranda, 45, probably came out of things about as well as could be expected. He doesn’t see that now; here’s hoping he does someday.

“You want me to start from the beginning?” he says.

On Oct. 8, Miranda put in his first day on the job for ATT Systems in Fullerton, a company that installs air-tube systems. Immediately, he was sent to Merrilville, Ind., for a job. He spent the week there and was returning to Fullerton, by way of O’Hare International Airport, when the fun started.

Because his job requires cutting metal sheets, Miranda routinely carries box cutters with him. And as he passed through O’Hare security on Oct. 13, he had a pair in his shoulder bag.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious that after the plane hijackings on Sept. 11, no one in his right mind would take box cutters into an airport. Miranda says he was so accustomed to carrying them that the potential perils escaped him.

Not until he’d cleared security, he says, did he realize he had the tool. He says he tried to tell an airport official that he had it on him but couldn’t immediately get him out of a conversation he was having. So Miranda decided to take matters into his own hands.

What he did makes perfect sense: He tossed the box cutters into a trash can.

A few hours later, just before boarding his flight, Miranda found himself surrounded. “About 10 cops grabbed me,” he says. “They asked if I threw away a box cutter, and I said yes.”

That was the magic word that landed Miranda in jail overnight.

A Chicago Police Department spokesman says that making it past security with box cutters amounted to probable cause to arrest Miranda.

He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and with attempting to board an aircraft with box cutters. He told the cops he didn’t have the item in his possession as he tried to board.

On Nov. 2, he went back to Chicago for his court date. The judge agreed to drop the felony concealed-weapon charge if Miranda would plead guilty to the other, a misdemeanor. Not wanting to but unable to afford a return to Chicago for more courtroom proceedings, Miranda did.

By then, the details of the story had been sorted out. Someone in the airport, perhaps another traveler, had seen Miranda discard the box cutters and tipped off police. From what Miranda later learned, he was then watched over the next few hours and nabbed just before boarding.

At his Nov. 2 appearance, Miranda showed the judge a letter from a previous Orange County employer that read, in part, “As a function of his employment, [Miranda] was required to utilize sharp-edged cutting tools to cut copper sheet. . . . It would not be uncommon for Ernie to have such a tool on his person or with his belongings while traveling from job to job.”

Apparently satisfied, the judge let Miranda go.

You could argue that that ended things.

Miranda doesn’t see it that way.

Several weeks later, he’s still steamed.

“On the way home from Chicago, I cried, man,” he says. “I was not guilty of anything.”

“What do you want?” I ask.

“What I want is to be cleared over there. It’s ridiculous. I’m angry at our system, and I’m hurt,” he says. “I still think we have a great country; it just let me down.”

He lost the job he had just begun that week. Miranda says the company fired him. I talked to Mike Sweet, who had hired Miranda, and he says Miranda, perhaps embarrassed, simply didn’t return to work after the O’Hare incident.

I got the distinct impression that Sweet was happy to be rid of Miranda.

“Given the times we’re living in, would you carry box cutters into an airport?” Sweet asks.

Uh, no.

So Miranda learned a tough lesson. For now, he has found temporary work in Colorado.

My advice to Miranda would be to put it all behind him.

He’s not so sure. “I should have stayed in Chicago and fought the case,” he says by phone from Boulder. “I’m thinking of working until I can clear my name.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821; by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.