For sheer stupidity and incompetence, this incident involving the TSA and a disabled teenage girl suffering from brain cancer who was savagely thrown to the floor when she became confused about a metal detector going off can’t be beat.
Why these bullies weren’t thrown in jail is a mystery.
Seventeen-year-old Hannah Cohen was preparing to fly from Memphis to her home in Chattanooga with her parents last year. Hannah was going home following her annual treatments at St. Jude hospital for brain cancer.
She passed through the metal detectors, setting off an alarm — and what happened next will make your blood boil.
Her years of treatment left the teenager partially deaf, blind in one eye, and limited in her abilities to walk and talk. She also, according to her mother, can become easily confused.
When Hannah went through the metal detector at the airport, an alarm went off. Disoriented by the noise, she did not immediately cooperate with TSA agents who asked to conduct further screening.
Shirley Cohen tried to inform the agents about her daughter’s disabilities, she told television station WREG, but airport police kept her away. That’s when the situation between Hannah and the TSA officials became violent:
“She’s trying to get away from them but in the next instant, one of them had her down on the ground and hit her head on the floor. There was blood everywhere,” said [Shirley].
Security personnel arrested Hannah (though all charges against her were later dropped), and what should have been a night of celebration with family and friends because a night of terror and confusion in a jail cell.
A year later, the family is suing the airport, its police, and the TSA for damages, including medical expenses and emotional injuries. According to the lawsuit, they are asking for a “reasonable sum not exceeding $100,000 and costs.”
Next page: The systemic dysfunction at the TSA.
What brave TSA agents we have. Did they give a medal to the hero who threw the little girl to the ground and busted her head open?
How dysfunctional is the TSA? For starters, turnover is so high that they are hiring unqualified and poorly trained agents. If beefy federal agents can’t safely subdue a tiny 17-year-old girl, what would happen if an ISIS suicide bomber was trying to get through the metal detector?
Secondly, management is deficient and incompetent. How is it possible that these trained apes were put on the front line of security at a busy airport?
But the major problem with the TSA is a culture of unaccountability. This was TSA’s response to requests for comment on the incident:
The defendants declined to comment, while TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz noted in a statement that “passengers can call ahead of time to learn more about the screening process for their particular needs or medical situation.”
Yes…they went there. They blamed the victim and her family for not calling ahead before they tried to board the plane.
Incidents like this will spur calls to privatize airport security. But Democrats will have none of it since the union representing TSA employees has become powerful and influential in Washington.
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