Hannah Cohen has lived a difficult life. Seventeen out of her nineteen years have been spent under regular medical care for a tumor attached to her brain stem. It has caused her to go blind in one eye, she’s very hard of hearing and is partially paralyzed. Her recent pass through a Memphis TSA security line left her battered and bloody by TSA screening agents, when her sequin shirt set off the metal detector.
Shirley Cohen, Hannah’s mother stood by in horror, as agents of the Transportation Security Administration grabbed the frightened teen and threw her to the ground causing her to bang her head. She was on her way home from her most recent tumor treatment at St Jude’s Hospital.
According to Shirley, her daughter set off the metal detector. “They wanted to do further scanning, she was reluctant, she didn’t understand what they were about to do.” Hannah, who was confused and frightened, tried to flee from the agents. Of course the agents escalated the situation jumping to violence before having all the facts. “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,” Hannah’s mother continued. “There was blood everywhere.” She stated that she tried to explain to the agents about her daughter’s condition and that she was scared. TSA agents held her back and wouldn’t allow her to “interfere.”
Just a few months ago, an ex-TSA whistle blower came forward, calling out the culture at the TSA as resembling Lord of the Flies. Mark Livingston, a former TSA manager stated in a congressional hearing that the TSA is in desperate need of new leadership. He stated that the agency has a distinct lack of oversight and that morale was at an all time low.
Livingston’s statements are a clear indicator that the mess we see at the security line at the airport begins at the administrative level. The actions taken by agents in Hannah’s case are a prime example of failure of training, and responsibility on the part of TSA supervision. The failure to properly screen and train employees haunts police departments around the country; now we are seeing similar behaviors in TSA agents as we see in overzealous cops.
According to their blog, the TSA has a zero tolerance policy for violence in the workplace. However, it does not appear that their anti-violence policy extends to handicapped travelers.
The TSA has been controversial since their inception in 2001. Besides the intrusive security procedures and enhanced screening techniques employed by agents, the TSA has come under fire for a string of failures to catch weapons and other contraband sneaked through by undercover agents. In 2006, 20 out of 22 undercover security tests were failed by the screening agents, leaving people to wonder why we go through all the inconvenience, if they aren’t doing their job. Other reports in 2007 showed that the TSA kept passenger personal data in an unsecured filing system, leaving everyone who traveled during that time, exposed to identity theft. This is just the latest incident, which brings us again to wonder if we need the TSA at all.
Hannah and her mother have filed a law suit against the TSA for $100,000, for the brutality that she underwent at their hands.
Sources: NBC News, The Unknown But Not Hidden.
This article (TSA Agents Beat Frightened Disabled Teen – Refuse Moms Help) is a free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author Alek Hidell and AnonHQ.com.
I honestly think our cops and tsa are not trained appropriately. The cops are becoming more of a domesticated military trained to see us all as evil doers. That has to raise their blood pressure. And neither is trained to identify disabled people and have no clue how to handle it unless they have dealt with it in their families.
Aspie you cannot train compassion, nor the ability to handle pressure.
Most “police” officers nowadays are cowards. They’ll violently lash out, because that is their safest bet. NEVER put your OWN life on the line; play it safe. This is how OUR new-school of “police officers” operate.
I keep on hearing about this brutality crap from these “agents” all the time. Of course the person who was ASSSULTED by them was a sick, young girl who couldn’t possibly protect herself. You never hear of incidents like this happening with a 300 pound man. I really wish I had the opportunity to see just how far I can kick my foot up their asses, while they cowered on the ground and tried to protect their bloodied faces.
These people don’t need to be investigated, they need to be ARRESTED FOR ASSULT, endangering the welfare of a child, and attempted murder (on account of the damage that they caused on her head) They should be immediately be put into Riker’s Island, in general population, with their past employment as officers made clearly known to the inmates. Let the inmates decide whose “bend over” pal that they should become.
SUCH COWARDS… you are supposed to be protecting young helpless girls, not beating the crap out of them, you MORONS / CRIMINALS.