Tam Nguyen wants everyone to know he was just a forgetful traveler in a hurry, not a bad guy intent on terrorism after a loaded handgun was found in his backpack at Sacramento International Airport.
Nguyen, 49, of Sacramento was arrested Tuesday in Terminal B on weapons charges when federal Transportation Security Administration personnel found a loaded firearm in his backpack when his belongings went through an X-ray machine. In an interview with The Bee at the Sacramento County Jail Wednesday morning, Nguyen said he is innocent.
"I would love to get this story out in The Bee so people don't think I'm a stupid terrorist," said Nguyen. "I'm not that stupid that I would go to the airport knowing I have a gun in my backpack."
Nguyen said the .22-caliber handgun belonged to his wife's cousin. He used to go target shooting with the cousin.
Since then, the gun has been stored in the bottom of the backpack for safe-keeping, he said. He grabbed the backpack on Thursday and stuffed it with socks, underwear and other travel needs for an Fourth of July holiday trip to visit a friend in Mississippi.
Mindful that he should heed recommendations that he be at the airport two hours ahead of his flight, he was in a hurry Tuesday. He knew he would never make it two hours early but wanted to get the airport as quickly as he could from his South Sacramento home.
Nguyen was in line with his backpack going through the security viewing machine, when things came to a halt. He said he thought the machine might be broken.
Then, TSA summoned Sacramento County Sheriff's deputies. That's when things got really serious.
He was asked what he had in his pack, Nguyen said. At first he was puzzled by the question.
Then it dawned on him what they were getting at: "Oh my god. I'm in trouble," Nguyen said he uttered.
Nguyen immigrated to the United States from South Vietnam in 1980 with his family as a young man. He has worked at a variety of jobs: jeweler, car body repairman, cabinet maker and manicurist.
He said that he had cancer in 2003. Nguyen has little money and cannot make his $60,000 bail.
"I forgot it was there," he said of the handgun.
If Nguyen is telling the truth, it is a scenario played out each day in the country, said TSA spokesman Nico Melendez
"Every day we find at least two guns in our nation's airports," Melendez said. "Typically, passengers just seem to forget they have them in their carry-on bags."
Melendez noted that passengers are permitted to carry firearms onto airplanes if they are declared to the airline in advance, are unloaded and are secured inside a locked carrying case.
He added that rules on carrying weapons outside secure areas of airports vary depending on local laws.
"Carrying it down the street or carrying it through the terminal is a local sheriff's issue," he said. "We just keep them out of secure areas."
Nguyen was arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm by an ex-felon, carrying a loaded firearm in a public place with a prior conviction and carrying a concealed weapon.
A sheriff's department spokesman that Nguyen will be arraigned 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
"The guy is either totally clueless and his story is true and the gun was just stuffed in there or maybe he thought nobody would catch him," said sheriff's department spokesman Deputy Jason Ramos. "Who knows?"
Ramos said there is no indication that Nguyen was intent on hijacking a plane. He called Nguyen co-operative and contrite.
"He just claimed that he was oblivious to the fact that it was in there," said Ramos.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.