Cleveland's Airport Security Chief Complains About Staffing, Lack of Support from Leadership, in Blunt Resignation Letter

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The man who reported the security breach involving two top officials in Mayor Frank Jackson’s administration last October at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport quit his job in frustration.

Airport Security Manager Howard Phillips cites frustrations with staffing and a lack of support from airport leadership in a two-page, bluntly worded letter of resignation that cleveland.com obtained Wednesday.

"There comes a time when you have to cut your losses," his letter concludes.

Phillips gave his two-week notice on July 15 in a letter to Dina Wilson, the airport’s chief of human resources. Cleveland.com received a heavily redacted copy of the letter after requesting it from the city.

Notes on the copy indicate that the redactions were made for security reasons.

Phillips said in his letter that he intended to use vacation time rather than work again in the office. He has not returned since submitting his letter, according to Dan Williams, a spokesman for Mayor Frank Jackson.

Williams declined to comment on the issues Phillips raised in his letter and said he did not have a timetable for when a new security director would be hired for Hopkins.

You can read Phillips’ letter below. Mobile users click here.

Phillips complains about a lack of support to make changes in his department that he felt were needed to be "compliant with Transportation Security Administration regulations.”

He cites as an example a lack of adequate staffing that he says was promised to help respond to an inquiry from TSA. The nature of the inquiry is redacted and marked as security sensitive material. Phillips indicates in his letter, though, that he never got full use of the additional staff.

“This exposes the airport to additional LOIs [letters of inquiry] and fines for non-compliance and I am not willing to accept the responsibility anymore for being non-compliant."

When contacted earlier this month about Phillips’ resignation, Williams said he didn’t know what prompted the decision.

But cleveland.com noted then that Phillips had been security director less than two years, and that two security breaches had occurred under his watch.

As security manager, Phillips investigated both incidents. One, in October, involved an airport administrator and a high-ranking member of the Jackson administration. The other, in February, involved a car that crashed through an air field gate.

Hopkins and the city drew the ire of TSA for being slow to report the October breach. In that incident, then assistant airport director Fred Szabo escorted Jackson’s chief of operations, Darnell Brown, around TSA security screeners.

Cleveland.com learned the details of the incident from sources. Those details were later confirmed in public records released by the city.

Brown cleared security to catch a flight, but then realized he had left his cellphone in his car. Szabo helped him retrieve the phone and then bypass security and board the flight with the unscreened phone.

Records obtained by cleveland.com show that the breach was the third security-related incident in two years to involve Szabo, who was subsequently removed as assistant airport director.

Initially, Szabo misled Phillips about the October breach, falsely telling him the security manager that he had the escort paperwork required to take Brown around security, according to records.

Cleveland didn’t notify TSA until 20 later. Phillips told TSA investigators that airport chief Robert Kennedy told him to wait to report the incident until after Szabo could be questioned, according to records released by the city.

Ultimately several people reported the incident to TSA.

TSA was so upset by the delay that it issued a letter warning that it could fine the city $13,333 for each of five violations of federal regulations.

Cleveland.com has requested copies of TSA’s final letter to the city that closed the investigation, but that record has not been provided. TSA told cleveland.com it closed the case in February.

A request with TSA for the document, filed under the Freedom of Information Act, also is pending.

Phillips also was point investigator for a security breach in February, when a man driving an SUV crashed through a perimeter gate, drove across the airfield and crashed through a fence on the other side. The driver, Daniel Allen of Cleveland, is awaiting sentencing on charges of vandalism and driving under the influence.

The security gate in Cleveland Hopkins International Airport’s perimeter fence was left open and unsecured for nearly three hours, according to airport emails.

Emails exchanged by airport officials after that security breach, later obtained by cleveland.com, indicated that some airport employees might have passed by the open gate and failed to notify anyone.

“Shouldn’t someone have stayed at the gate,” Phillips asks in one of the emails. “We need to discuss the progressive discipline program for failing to call operations for an unsecured gate and not standing by the gate until someone arrived to secure.”

His resignation letter reflects similar concerns.

"I have spent way too many nights waking up and thinking about issues in the department or with individuals in the department and my health and well-being are far more important, regardless of those that may say I am taking things too personally,” he wrote.

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