BWI screener charged in false report

A security screener at Baltimore-Washington International Airport was arrested on charges including telephone misuse after he was accused of reporting a false emergency yesterday from a phone for the deaf at Pier E.

Andre Markell Jeffries, 19, of the 300 block of New Jersey Ave., Glen Burnie, also was charged with providing false information to Maryland Transportation Authority Police in the incident. He was released on his own recognizance by a District Court commissioner.

At 11:52 a.m., police received word through an AT&T text-telephone system operator that someone at the airport needed emergency help. But a subsequent investigation determined that the call had been made "possibly as some kind of joke," a police spokesman said.

Police said Jeffries works for Globe Security and was on duty at the pier yesterday.