Texas Tech Student Diana Durkin Questioned Over 'Finger Gun' Salute At Airport

Who would have thought a little school spirit had the possibility of landing someone in trouble, that too with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)? Diana Durkin, a sophomore at Texas Tech University, found out about this the hard way when she was stopped at the Houston Airport for throwing her hand in the air in a finger gun-like gesture.

The hand gesture, according to Durkin, was how Texas Tech fans salute each other. It was a nod to the varsity’s mascot, the Masked Rider.

Durkin, a resident of Houston, had taken a semester off to help her family recover from hurricane Harvey, and was thrilled to get back to her school for her sophomore year, she told Buzzfeed News. While waiting at the William P. Hobby Airport’s security line on Jan. 6 for a flight to Texas, she saw a man wearing a Texas Tech hoodie. Without giving it much thought, Durkin threw up a finger gun.

"It's a cool bonding thing. I tried to make eye contact with him and I throw my handgun up," she said.

The man just gave her a strange look, she added.

Moments later, a TSA agent approached her and said, “What are you doing? You can’t do that in an airport,” Buzzfeed News reported.

Durkin added that the TSA agent gave her a full pat down and screening.

Durkin said she was terrified and kept thinking, “Oh my gosh, they think I’m a terrorist… Oh my gosh, I’m going to jail. … I'm just sitting there, almost in tears, like, 'No, I'm just really dumb, I'm not a terrorist!' Please don't send me to jail, I'm not going to survive very long in jail,” Fox News reported.

She also managed to send out a tweet during the ordeal, which she said was quickly going viral. At the time of publishing this article, her tweet had 3,700 retweets and 38,000 likes.

Durkin said she was left with the TSA agents, answering their questions and showing them her student ID, for what felt like hours. She was left off soon with a stern warning, and she assured them it won’t happen again.

Soon, people took to Twitter to share how they got into trouble with the airport security for silly reasons.

A Twitter user named Nicole Davidson said the TSA “pulled me out of line on Christmas Eve because they thought my mom's candle securely wrapped in my bag was a bomb...”

Here are some other Twitter reactions.

Texas Tech University also took to Twitter to show their solidarity towards Durkin.