The lovelorn boyfriend who chased his gal pal through an exit door at Newark, causing a security breach that shut down the airport for hours and delayed thousands of people, didn’t know what he’d done until police showed up at his door in New Jersey. From the Times, which spoke to 28-year-old graduate student Haisong Jiang this week:
“I saw her at the exit,” he said in nearly fluent English. “At that moment, I’m very excited for her. I didn’t realize the consequences.” He slipped under the rope and kissed her and, arm in arm, walked her to her Continental Airlines gate and saw her onto the jetway. “And immediately I left,” he said. There was no commotion in the terminal when he drove away to his home in Piscataway, he said.
He does not spend much time following the news, he said — he is working to earn his doctorate degree in the field of biology, seeking a cure for eye ailments like glaucoma and cataracts. So it was two days before he heard about the evacuation at the airport. He was unfazed. “I only know it’s maybe caused by a camera problem,” he said. “I didn’t know it was me.” Three days passed. “Friday, the police found me,” he said. He was at the gym when his roommate called to say two police officers were at their home. Reality finally dawned on the budding scientist: “It’s not right to enter the airport. Immediately I know the police want to ask me this thing.”
After his 100 hours of community service (which he hopes to spend much of at a soup kitchen), he hopes to move to California to be with his girlfriend, with whom he speaks precisely 2,000 minutes a month. That’s love, people.
