Changing of the guard: Metro Police taking over airport security

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, May 22, 2002 | 10:48 a.m.

First Sgt. Glenn Guy is going to Arizona to finish the cabin he started with his wife and two children last September.

Maj. Kike De La Paz will take back his job as a Summerlin soccer coach and rejoin his two business partners managing a Las Vegas janitorial company.

Spc. Kamran Khan says he plans to catch a few more of his daughter's ballet classes.

After eight months patrolling McCarran International Airport, Nevada Army National Guardsmen today packed up their camouflage uniforms and lightweight rifles. Their departure brings back a degree of normalcy to an airport that before Sept. 11 tried to ensure that tourists remembered only the fabulous city -- not baggage claim.

But Metro Police, which has already increased its ranks to maintain the same level of security provided by the National Guard, has no plans to deliver the once-famous "seamless experience" that Rosemary Vassiliadis, deputy director of Clark County Aviation, used to discuss at the end of every chamber of commerce speech.

"Given 9/ll, we have a very heightened state of awareness," said Lt. Al Salinas, head of the Metro Police substation at McCarran. "And it will be that way forever. We'll never go back. And I don't think the public wants us to go back. They want to feel safe."

Las Vegan Barbara Rivard, a computer saleswoman arriving Tuesday from Detroit, said she did not want to see the National Guardsman go.

"It's just a little more security in a city like this," she said. "I don't think all that terrorism is over."

Judson Kennedy, a machine salesman from Los Angeles, said the same thing, adding that police should replace Guardsmen in the same numbers.

"It's not going to cool off for awhile," he said.

Both business fliers had heard the vague but chilling predictions from Bush administration officials this week that more terrorist attacks on Americans are "almost a certainty."

The lingering threat of terrorism, no less likely today than on Oct. 7 when Army National Guardsmen began 24-hour patrols of McCarran, may explain why airline passengers continue to shower them with requests for photos, flowers, handshakes and e-mails.

"We're surprised it's as strong today as when we got here," said Spc. Khan, a first-generation American. Among other outpourings of generosity, he said, "I benefited from a pizza party, yes."

The roughly 120 National Guardsmen deployed at McCarran were some of the 9,000 reservists called by President Bush to provide airport security in late September. A total of 50,000 reservists were called for duty after Sept. 11.

Maj. De La Paz, who oversaw operations at McCarran, said his soldiers successfully completed a threefold mission: They assisted with security, reassured the public that air travel remained safe and supplied a deterrent force.

"When we first came here, the government didn't know what they were going to do. We patrolled the hell out of the airport," De La Paz said. "People may ask, 'Why are we hand-wanding a 5-year-old or an old rheumatic man in a wheelchair?' We had a terrorist act.

"Slowly we'll pull out the stuff that doesn't need to be done now that the government knows the direction we're going in."

Today, only ticketed passengers can venture into the "sterile" area beyond screening gates to wait for planes. A minimum of three airport security workers check their ticket and bags at the screening gates. Armed Metro Police patrol those gates, Vassiliadis said.

By year's end, all airport security employees will work for the federal government in accordance with congressional mandate, which means they will have passed more stringent background checks and be better trained, Vassiliadis said.

Every checked bag will also have to pass through an explosives detection system by year's end. McCarran has five such machines now and hopes to secure 11 more.

The best the airport can do, Vassiliadis said, is to provide a Disneyland approach to lines -- lines leading to a single entry point ensure the first customer is always the first served.

"It's getting better," she said. "It's getting better."