People often try to brazenly smuggle forbidden items into county buildings.

In fact, several years ago someone tried to bring not one, not two, not three, not four, but five cell phones into the Guilford County Court House in Greensboro.  However, the winner for the boldest smuggling attempt goes to a man who showed up at Guilford County’s High Point jail earlier this month.

On Tuesday, March 15, the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department reported the incident that occurred nine days earlier:  On Sunday, March 6, Bryant William Hairston, a 54-year-old High Point man, attempted to bring a gun into the Guilford County jail in downtown High Point as he was being booked into the jail.

In Guilford County, inmates are not allowed to have loaded guns while they are incarcerated. Area law enforcement officials consider that to be a security risk.

Hairston was arrested by High Point police officers for drug possession and a failure to appear. The officers brought Hairston to the jail where a new state-of-the-art, full-body scanner detected a small, stolen, loaded .32-caliber handgun “inside the waist area of Mr. Hairston’s undergarments.”

According to the March 15 press release from the Sheriff’s Department, the gun was discovered during the intake process while Hairston was still in the booking area at the jail.

The Sheriff’s Department’s high-tech scanner, the press release notes, was “one of several purchased in 2021 as a measure to enhance Jail safety and security.”

Hairston was charged with “possessing a dangerous weapon inside a local confinement facility. “

Since he was a convicted felon and the handgun was stolen, Hairston was also charged with those additional crimes.