THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 8, 1995 TAG: 9503080522
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
A guard at Raleigh-Durham International Airport was fired Tuesday after witnesses said he throttled former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, an airport spokesman said.
Wilder was unhurt but indignant after the incident, which began when the metal clips on his suspenders apparently tripped an airport metal detector.
The incident occurred about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday as Wilder tried to board a flight to Virginia after speaking at Duke University on Monday night.
Wilder recounted the incident during his morning radio program Tuesday.
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,'' Wilder said on WRVA-AM in Richmond.
The guard, an employee of Globe Security, was fired, said airport spokesman Rick Martinez. Neither Globe Security nor the airport would identify the guard.
``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.''
Globe said in a brief written statement that it is investigating the incident. Calls to Globe's Irving, Texas, headquarters were not returned.
Witness Lisa Thanhauser told WTVD-TV in Durham that she saw the guard come after Wilder twice, ``to the point where he had to be sort of dragged off out (of) these double doors to get him away from (Wilder).''
In an interview after his radio program, Wilder said that when he tried to explain to the guard that metal on his suspenders apparently triggered the device, the guard told him to ``turn around and get up against the wall, I haven't quite finished with you.''
At that point, Wilder decided he would report the guard, and turned to look at his name tag.
``That's when he charged me and choked me,'' Wilder said.
Wilder scowled when he was told that some accounts had him grabbing first. ``I did not lay a hand on him,'' he said. Asked if he planned to press charges, Wilder said his smile would be his only answer.
Wilder, who in 1989 became the nation's first elected black governor, said race ``might have been, might not have been'' a factor. The former guard is white.
Globe operates security at the airport under a contract with USAir. Because USAir operates the most planes at the airport, it handles the airport security contract, said Andrea Butler, a spokeswoman at the airline's Arlington headquarters.
Tuesday's incident may have harmed Globe's chances for keeping the contract, Butler said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
KEYWORDS: ASSAULT by CNB