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Letter to the editor

Other airport arrests echo details of Craig case

MINNEAPOLIS - A foot-tapping ritual was a common thread in many of the 41 arrests reported during a four-month airport bathroom sting that snared Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

An undercover officer would take a seat in a stall. Soon another man would sit in the stall next door and start tapping his foot, perhaps moving it closer to the officer's. The officer would move his foot up and down slowly. The suspect might then extend his hand under the divider between the stalls, sometimes repeatedly.

That would be enough to get the man busted.

Airport police reports obtained by the Associated Press gave strikingly similar accounts of the events that led to the 41 arrests officers made for alleged lewd conduct in public restrooms in the main terminal of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport during the May-August sting.

Craig insisted that his actions were misconstrued, according to the police report on his June 11 arrest. But the Idaho Republican quietly pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct earlier this month.

In several of the police reports, officers wrote that they knew from their training and work experience that the foot-tapping was a signal used by people looking for sex.

Police nabbed a few of the suspects by other means, such as responding to posts on Internet sites by men looking to arrange a quick hookup in the airport.

The charges ranged from misdemeanors such as loitering, disorderly conduct and indecent exposure, to gross misdemeanors such as interference with privacy. Some of the suspects denied to police that they were after sex, others admitted it. Most were cooperative with police.

[Last modified August 30, 2007, 01:40:44]