If you strike a flight attendant, smoke in your airline seat or expose yourself on a plane in Denver, you may have to deal with FBI Special Agent Joel Nishida.
The 46-year-old is one of 450 FBI airport liaison agents who were designated to handle security at the nation’s airports after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Over the past year, Nishida arrested several disorderly airline passengers at DIA — from abusive moms to men harassing fellow fliers — all of them intoxicated on alcohol.
One of them was Christina Elizabeth Szele, a New Yorker who punched a flight attendant, used racial slurs and assaulted another crew member aboard a JetBlue flight to San Francisco in June 2008. She got mad when the attendant asked her to stop smoking her cigarette in flight. Her behavior forced the pilot to land the plane in Denver.
“It’s probably one of the more egregious cases I’ve seen at the airport,” he said. “One went straight to the hospital they were so messed up.”
He said that shortly after the 2001 attacks, airline passengers were more tolerant of security restrictions, but as time has passed without an attack, people are becoming more impatient at the airport.
“I’m concerned that with the passage of time there is that complacency,” he said.
Nishida, a 20-year veteran of the FBI, says he couldn’t do his job at DIA without officers from the Denver Police Department, the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Air Marshals and agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I don’t want to be seen as some sort of star because I am not,” he said.
Nishida grew up in Northern California, earned a law degree at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and planned to become a federal prosecutor, but decided on an FBI career instead.
“I never regretted the choice,” he said. “No two days are the same. If you are a person who likes a schedule, as an FBI agent, you would be miserable.”
To stay healthy and cope with the job, Nishida runs marathons. He got inspired to run long distances while on the job at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002.
He’s completed eight races so far, but won’t reveal his times because he says he does it for fun and so he can eat whatever he wants.
“I’m not fast; it’s just a personal challenge,” he said.
Nishida not only watches the airport, but is head of the crisis negotiation team at the Denver FBI and trains local law enforcement on how to handle standoffs and hostage situations.
During a recent FBI Citizen’s Academy class, he pretended to be a criminal sparring with one of the class members who was posing as an FBI agent. Nishida frequently hung up a mock telephone during negotiations with the student to show how difficult it can be to get someone to calm down in a tense situation.
“The best way is to listen to people,” he said of negotiating. “They just want to be heard. A lot of times people are just having a bad day and they want you to hear their problems. It’s not rocket science.”
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
