
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 8, 1995                   TAG: 9503080103
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

WILDER: GUARD ASSAULTED HIM

Former Gov. Douglas Wilder claimed he was roughed up Tuesday by a security guard at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport as he was returning from a speech in North Carolina.

Wilder said on his radio talk show that he was passing through a security station preparing to board a flight back to Richmond when the guard grabbed him.

Wilder said on his radio show on WRVA-AM in Richmond that the guard ``charged me and choked me with both hands around my neck and said, `I don't like you. Don't try to get my name.' Whereupon his co-workers grabbed him and sent him off someplace.''

Glenn Davidson, a Wilder aide, said the former governor was not injured.

Wilder had been in North Carolina for a speech Monday night at Duke University.

The security guard was fired, said airport spokesman Rick Martinez, who described the incident differently.

``The governor was not happy with the way he was treated'' after he triggered the metal detector, Martinez said. Wilder ``grabbed for the employee's ID badge. ... When the governor went to grab for the badge, then the employee went and grabbed the governor.''

Martinez confirmed that the guard grabbed Wilder around the neck. The security company, Globe Security, is investigating the incident, Martinez said. Globe referred calls to airport authorities.

``The airport has made it perfectly clear to everybody, but in particular, the security people, that type of treatment, any type of rude treatment of a passenger, isn't going to be tolerated,'' Martinez said.

by CNB