Public Radio for the Piedmont and High Country
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Former NC Police Chief Detained At JFK For 90 Minutes

Former Greenville Police Chief Hassan Aden. Photo courtesy of the Greenville Police Department.

Former Greenville Police Chief Hassan Aden says he's disappointed with his country of 42 years after he was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Aden says he was detained March 13 on a return trip from Paris. He says that while he supports the officers of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, he believes his 90-minute detention was unreasonable.

In a Facebook post, Aden says a customs officer told him that his name "was used as an alias by someone on some watch list."

The 52-year-old Aden says he became a naturalized U.S. citizen at the age of 10 when he was an Italian citizen.

He now works as a law enforcement consultant, and lives in Alexandria, VA.

Customs and Border Patrol officials didn't immediately comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

Support quality journalism, like the story above,
with your gift right now.

Donate