A Saskatchewan woman says she is humiliated after her personal laptop was deemed a suspicious package and destroyed at the Regina International Airport on Monday and is looking for a public apology.
Tracey Britton of Saint Victor, Sask., went through security just before 10 a.m. CT to catch a flight to Toronto. There she would connect with her sister and fly to Peru to attend her father’s wedding on Dec. 18.
“I was treated like a criminal right from the very beginning,” Britton told Global News.
After checking her larger baggage, Britton said she entered the security screening area with two carry-on bags and her personal laptop. Her two bags came through the x-ray scanner at security but her laptop was pulled aside for further inspection.
READ MORE: No criminal charges laid after suspicious item found at Regina airport
“All of a sudden the guy at the x-ray machine is like ‘come over here, come over here.’ Next thing you know, there were seven or eight people standing around the machine and I’m like, ‘OK, what’s going on’,” she said.
Britton said a code was read out over the intercom and staff began evacuating the area of passengers and airport workers. Britton was told to stay where she was and claimed airport officials never properly explained the situation to her.
When police arrived, Britton said an officer approached her and asked if there was anything she wanted to tell him.
“I looked at him and that’s when the realization hit that, ‘oh my God, they think this is a bomb’.”
She also recounted a humiliating moment when officers walked her in front of other passengers affected by the security delay to take her to a secure location while she was crying uncontrollably. Britton was also questioned extensively about her background.
Britton said the laptop in question was an Acer device, was eight or nine years old and had been brought on flights before. She used it to store pictures of family and inspirations for art projects.
In an emailed statement, Regina police said “there were at least three separate assessments of this item that came to the conclusion that it may contain an explosive.”
The Regina police explosives disposal unit took the laptop from the airport to a remote site where it was destroyed. They determined the computer was not an explosive device. Police did save the hard drive which has been made available to Britton.
But when Britton was finally able to leave after approximately six hours with no charges laid against her, she felt she deserved an apology from the Regina International Airport.
“Maybe they think they did a fabulous job of how they handled this, but they were wrong and I just want a formal, public apology.”
Britton has another flight booked that leaves Regina on Wednesday and will arrive in Peru early Thursday in time for her father’s wedding.
With files from Blake Lough
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