It is my belief that much of this sort of reaction from the Police?security forces is as a result of media interest if they fail to do something. A few weeks ago their was a stink in the press coz a pax got to Edinburgh with a knife in his bag-so what do you expect the security forces to do when a similar incident occurs when, after the last incident they proabably all got a rocket up their ar@es!
And sorry but in these cut throat lo-cost times feeding and watering the pax is definately not an airport issue.