Texas man charged after Pittsburgh International Airport security agents catch loaded handgun
A Texas man faces charges after police said they caught him Tuesday with a revolver inside a purse at Pittsburgh International Airport.
Court records identified the man as Mazzio Akins, 51, of Houston.
Transportation Security Administration agents spotted the loaded .22-caliber handgun inside an older-style purse as it went through the X-ray machine at the security checkpoint, said TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein.
She said the gun took up the entire purse.
Akins told officials he was clearing out the home of a deceased relative and bringing some things back to his home, and he did not realize there was a gun in the purse. He was charged with carrying a firearm without a license, police said.
“Our technologies are designed to alert us when we need a closer inspection of an item and indeed, the X-ray machine alarmed when it detected the gun through the purse and duffle bag,” said Karen Keys-Turner, the TSA security director for Pittsburgh. “Our X-ray units can see through all of that clutter.”
It was the 34th gun caught at the airport in 2021, one shy of the high in 2019 of 35.
Prior to the pandemic, the number of firearms confiscated by airport security in Pittsburgh had been slowly trending upward: 32 in 2017, 34 in 2018 and 35 in 2019.
Through the end of October, the most recent month for which figures are available, ab0ut 5 million travelers had passed through Pittsburgh International. It’s a 61% increase over the 3.13 million during the same time period in 2020 but still 38% below 2019 levels.
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