Express check-in? DHS intel worker arrested for bringing loaded handgun to the office

by WorldTribune Staff, June 10, 2016

A 46 year-old man working for the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis was arrested on June 9 for carrying a loaded handgun to work, sources confirmed.

dhsAs an employee working in an area with classified information, the man was not authorized to have a handgun in his office.

The sources verified a June 10 tweet by Scott McFarlane of NBC 4: “46 y/o man who works for US Dept of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence arrested for bringing loaded gun to work at agency headquarters”.

Details of the incident including how the worker could enter the DHS campus and his building with a weapon and how it was discovered have not been made public.

A former CIA analyst and a columnist for Geostrategy-Direct.com, Jack Caravelli, described the regulations for SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) at federal agencies like the one at DHS where the arrest reportedly occurred.

“A SCIF is a secured/vaulted area set off from the rest of a facility that itself also is secure,” he said. The presence of a firearm in such areas is unheard of and for obvious reasons, he added.

The DHS web site states that its Office of Intelligence and Analysis “is a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) and is the only IC element statutorily charged with delivering intelligence to our state, local, tribal, territorial and private sector partners, and developing intelligence from those partners for the Department and the IC.”

Calls to the DHS and the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis from WorldTribune.com were not returned.

The mission statement of the DHS, formed in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States, lists goals that include enhancing U.S. security against terrorism and forming a “unified and integrated Department that will enhance our performance by focusing on:

  • accountability
  • efficiency
  • transparency”.