Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Man sheds his clothes during bomb threat at airport parking lot

It was a fairly routine morning at the economy parking lot at the Albany International Airport. That's according to the people who work there. That was until one of the drivers who parked in the lot didn't have the five dollars necessary to pay his way out. Police say that's when he told the parking attendant he had a bomb. "Obviously bomb and airport don't belong in the same sentence," said Albany County Undersheriff Craig Apple who was there during the incident.

The undersheriff said a bomb squad, hazmat crew and investigators rushed to the scene. Meanwhile, the man they were dealing with 49 year-old James Buccigrossi of Clifton Park, had jumped into a fire truck that was on its way into the parking lot. "He says I'm an air marshall get driving. Guy goes a short way and realizes something is not right. Then he jumps out of the truck. The guy is running, he's naked," Apple said.



But police were still worried about his car that was parked near the ticket booths They thought there was ticking bomb in it. They shut down the parking lot. The scene was far away enough from the airport's terminals that no flights were cancelled. Police say the situation was scary. They were dealing with a possible bomb while trying to calm Buccigrossi down. At that point they say he was running around yelling stand back. "What it was was, he took his underwear off and said stand back and he threw it out the window," Apple said.

It turns out there was no bomb. Buccigrossi was taken to Albany Medical Center for an evaluation. Apple said he's not going to get off easy. "I don't care what the situation is. You don't yell bomb at an airport and expect to walk away and say I didn't know what I was doing." Investigators don't know why Buccigrossi acted the way he did. They say he might have been a financial advisor. He was driving a black 1993 BMW and had a Blackberry on him. Police say he has no criminal record.

With news video.

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