An unmarked truck used by federal immigration agents triggered a bomb scare and a temporary shutdown at St. Louis Lambert International Airport last week after it was left unattended outside Terminal 1. Police evacuated the area, called in an explosives-detection dog, and eventually broke a window to search the vehicle; police determined it posed no threat, and traffic resumed a short time later.
The incident unfolded the night of Oct. 7, when an airport traffic control officer reported an unattended pickup truck with no visible license plates parked on the departure-level drive outside Terminal 1, according to STLtoday.com. The truck had been parked outside Door 3, according to firstalert4.com.
An airport police officer and an explosives-detection dog responded to search the truck, and the dog, identified as Doni, twice alerted to the possible presence of explosives or accelerants, the station reports. That report prompted evacuation of the immediate area and a call to the regional bomb and arson unit, and police quarantined the zone while staging fire and emergency medical crews nearby, per the same account.
Officers Break In Through a Window
Officers entered the locked vehicle through a window, the station's report notes. Inside, they found an ICE tactical vest, silver handcuffs, a black duffel bag, several rounds of 9mm ammunition and a Department of Homeland Security license plate — but no explosives. Police declared the vehicle safe and issued an all-clear once the search was complete.
The ICE Midwest Public Affairs Office confirmed the truck was an enforcement and removal operations vehicle, as reported by fox2now.com. Lambert Airport said ICE had notified it ahead of the operation, per the same firstalert4.com report.
Terminal Closures and a Woman Taken Into Custody
Lambert Airport announced that the departure and arrival drives outside Terminal 1 were closed because of the incident, with vehicle and pedestrian access blocked to the terminal for hours, the firstalert4.com report states. Air traffic was not affected throughout the shutdown.
ICE identified the woman taken into custody as Aashi Kanoongo, saying she is from India and failed to comply with the terms of her admission to the United States, which expired in 2023, according to firstalert4.com. The agency said she remains in custody pending removal proceedings. First Alert 4 reported that ICE put her age at 29.
Airport video wall monitors were temporarily unavailable during the incident, but a Lambert spokesperson said the cameras themselves were working the entire time and live feeds remained available for monitoring, per firstalert4.com.
Part of a Broader Pattern at US Airports
The Lambert incident comes amid what attorneys describe as a rising frequency of ICE arrests at airports nationwide, according to cnn.com. A Homeland Security spokesperson declined to confirm any increase in such arrests, the outlet reports. Former acting ICE director John Sandweg told the outlet that airports offer agents a secure environment with access to passenger information, meaning “you need less agents” to make an arrest there.
Similar episodes have played out elsewhere this year. Cellphone video recorded on a Friday night showed undercover federal agents arresting a woman and placing her into a truck at Los Angeles International Airport, according to abc7.com, with airport officials there saying operations continued as normal. In July, an attempted arrest at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas ended after bystanders confronted agents, who left the man on the ground with one handcuff still on, per CNN's report. That man, Phu Nguyen, was taken into custody the next day after landing at LAX, the outlet reported. CNN also reported that a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, Lorenzo Thompson, was arrested while on the job at Nashville International Airport, and that Chantal Alejandra Morales Rojas was arrested on a jet bridge at Denver International Airport as she tried to board a Southwest flight.
