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EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Digital has obtained security video through a public records request showing Sheriff Chris Nanos stopped for bringing an undeclared handgun to a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at the Tucson International Airport ahead of a trip to Laguna Beach in California.
Active-duty law enforcement officers are typically allowed to fly armed if they meet federal requirements and notify the airline in advance, according to the TSA. However, critics have complained to the county board of supervisors that the sheriff was treated more leniently than the average citizen would have been.
And the video, recorded in November 2024, has been publicly released for the first time just after Pima County deputies have arrested three YouTubers for allegedly creating a public nuisance in Nancy Guthrie’s neighborhood, raising First Amendment concerns.
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The three streamers were identified as Alex Zabel, who uses the online moniker Criminal Network; Troy Bradshaw, who goes by “DAA JUICE”; and Damian Enderle, who runs the 857 Tucson channel.
Nanos missed his flight but was released without charges. Zabel and Bradshaw were both briefly jailed on June 8, while Enderle was given a citation.
“It looks like our lovely Sheriff Nanos has decided to go after YouTubers, streamers, and freelance journalists who dare enter the very street where Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped,” Enderle wrote on X Tuesday. “Meanwhile, less than a mile south, in a county-patrolled area, it appears to be a homeless fentanyl free-for-all.”
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The three streamers face misdemeanor public nuisance charges. Zabel is also accused of obstructing the roadway.
A spokesperson for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department told Fox News Digital that numerous complaints about blocked roadways, trespassing and other neighborhood disruptions have been called in, and that warnings allegedly went unheeded.
“After reviewing video evidence showing one of the arrestees urinating in public behind a makeshift tent, Sheriff Chris Nanos has directed deputies to take a stronger enforcement approach,” the spokesperson said. “Sheriff Nanos will no longer tolerate behavior that disrupts the community or violates the law.”
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Going forward, the sheriff’s department is vowing to cite and release first-time offenders. Anyone caught a second time may be jailed.
“Not sure those charges will stick, but it seems strange to still have people hanging around now that this has been a cold case for months,” said Dr. Matt Heinz, a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors. “These neighbors deserve some peace.”
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There has been a ban on media parking in the neighborhood since late February after dozens of news vehicles camped out up and down the block for weeks.
As Fox News Digital previously reported, a local resident named Cory Stephens complained to the county board of supervisors at a public meeting on Nov. 12, 2024, that the sheriff did not face the same consequences a regular citizen would have.
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“If a private citizen had encountered that at the airport, the consequences would have been greater,” Stephens, president of the Conservative Coalition of America, told Fox News Digital in April.
An incident report dated Nov. 6, 2024, shows a TSA X-ray technician saw the weapon in the sheriff’s bag and flagged an officer. Airport police found five rounds in the magazine and another in the chamber.
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The sheriff was not charged or arrested, but the responding officer read him a Miranda warning.
Nanos told the officer that he had stayed at a hotel the night before, which he said was election night. He said he didn’t want to leave the department-issued gun in his vehicle, which he checked in with a valet. So he stuffed it in his bag.
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“Got up this morning in a rush, we were late, and just threw everything in,” he says on bodycam video obtained by Fox News Digital.
The officer agreed it was an accident, informed his superiors and ultimately allowed Nanos to stow the weapon in his vehicle.
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“You are free to go, good sir — have a wonderful vacation,” the officer told Nanos after escorting him to the concourse exit.
The sheriff missed his flight, however, and took a later plane to California.
Guthrie is the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie.
Her suspected abduction remains unsolved, and there is a combined reward of more than $1.2 million for information that cracks the case.
The family is urging anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI. Anonymous tips can be called into Tucson’s 88-Crime hotline at 1-520-882-7463.
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