Queens man caught with loaded handgun at LaGuardia security checkpoint, police say 

The FBI is investigating a firearm incident at LaGuardia Airport after officials said a Queens man was caught with a loaded handgun in his backpack at a checkpoint on Wednesday.

Authorities said Anthony Richard Morgan, 31, of St. Albans, was being held after he was arrested by Port Authority Police, charged with criminal weapon possession and given a civil fine. 

When Transportation Security Administration officers at Terminal C were alerted to the backpack containing the firearm at a TSA checkpoint, "it was automatically diverted to a different conveyor belt" for inspection, spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said in a news release.

Farbstein said that’s when Morgan grabbed the backpack and attempted to flee the scene before TSA officers caught him and released him to Port Authority Police.

TSA’s Federal Security Director Robert Duffy said in the release that when the discovery triggered a security breach, the checkpoint was closed for about five minutes.

“When he climbed over the conveyor belt, grabbed the backpack and took off, our officers feared the worst,” Duffy said, adding that no one was harmed in the incident.

Attorney and arraignment information for Morgan was not immediately available. At the time of his arrest, he was ticketed to fly to Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, officials said.

Authorities said this was the seventh gun that TSA officers found at LaGuardia checkpoints this year, after finding nine guns last year and 11 guns in 2022.

While passengers are allowed to travel with firearms, they must be secured and unloaded in a hard-sided locked case and taken to a separate check-in counter. Firearms are not permitted at TSA checkpoints.