HawaiiTrvlr

Actor Judge Reinhold arrested in Dallas for refusing to be screened at the airport checkpoint (Dallas Love Field).

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/p...port/95166926/

flyupfrnt

Easy there Brad.

WillCAD

Just read the USA Today article. Not a lot of details there, but it says that HE cleared, but his BAG "raised an alarm", so they tried to pat HIM down, and he refused.

The police arrested him for disorderly conduct, so perhaps he threw a fit. Or, perhaps the police and TSA all over-reacted. Until the c/p video comes to light, I'll lay even odds on either the actor behaving like an idiot, or the authorities.

However, the genesis of the incident appears to be typical TSA stupidity - a bag alarms, so they immediately try to grab the scrotum of the person carrying the bag instead of the bag itself.

chollie

It seems to be an actual policy.

Parents with infants and foods >3.4 ounces are told to choose which one has to submit to a grope to clear the baby items.

The breast cancer survivor who declared her medically necessary cream that was apparently >3.4 ounces could only be cleared by a forceful grope.

Actor's bag alarms, a grope is necessary to clear the bag

I'm seeing a very clear pattern here. Must be something new they're learning at the 'academy'.

guflyer

Is this a new policy? Obviously, letting the parents choose which one needs to receive a pat-down does not make any sense at all for security.

Do all bag checks result in a pat-down?

What happens when one is already receiving a pat-down because he or she decides to opt-out?

GUWonder

That choice thing is not new. It's been around for what is closer to a decade than to 5 years or less.

No. Most do not with the TSA.

It often goes like this:

Bags opened and swabbed, passenger patted down after the "until the hands meet 'resistance'" rub down, and then an ETD swab run on the TSA screener's hands/gloves. Not in that order, but those steps.

Loren Pechtel

Yeah, that's consistent with my last flight. Previously they waved their strips above my bottle(s) and that was that. Last flight it was strips, ETD test the bag and I got the grope. (No question of who as the stuff had already been identified as mine, not hers.) I thought it was my guy being new (he kept asking other agents for instructions) but maybe it's changed policy. At least nothing I was carrying was sterile.

GUWonder

That's not all that new, but maybe such practice has been spreading across US airports.

If two or more people are traveling together or someone else is willing to be the "fall guy", this TSA practice is so easy to game that this TSA practice really is little more than the following:

an ineffective effort at interdiction of W/E/I contraband, but an effective dog and pony show that makes the innocent pay the price for following the very TSA rules which the TSA feels were a compromise it would rather not have made.

petaluma1

The parent choice thing isn't new but what apparently is "new" is the hands jammed into the pants thing. Initially, it was just fingers going around the waistband but in the last few months, perhaps coinciding with the new groin patdown, it has been entire hand jammed as far down into one's pants as possible.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26658947-post619.html

Note that the poster, a screener, wrote: Remove the belt to make it easier for us to get out hands down your pants.

FliesWay2Much

I can speculate that it wasn't a firearm because that would have been all over the news as the Big Catch of the Week. And, since it wasn't a gun, there will be no video released because the TSA has nothing to gain.

This makes me think that he might have had a personal stash in his bag. The clerk knew it and made up an excuse to search the bag.

FliesWay2Much

From HuffPo:

A linked Dallas Morning News article said that his lawyer would be making a statement later today.

chollie

What seems to be new is that a bag search automatically triggers a grope of a pax who did not alarm the NoS/WTMD.

I'm physically unable to use the NoS. Whenever I'm directed to the NoS, I get a grope instead - and a complete bag search and swab. The bag search and swab aren't because there was something suspicious on the xray, it's just an attempt to bully me into magically healing my body so I can use the NoS and stop annoying TSOs who would rather continue playing with their cellphones than interrupt their conversations to grope me.

WillCAD

The article doesn't say anything about prohibited or suspicious items being found. It simply says that his bag "raised an alarm." I think it's a stretch to say that he actually had anything prohibited in his possession based solely on that, but I don't think it's a stretch to state that the two most likely "alarms" to have been raised would be either an alert from the x-ray operator, or a positive ETD test.

Had something like a controlled substance - even including MJ - been found in the bag, that fact would most likely have been included in the article.

The article also states that he was arrested for disorderly conduct, not for any drug charges. Even with the changes in MJs legality in recent years, I can't imagine that Texas has made it legal for casual possession, so if he had had a stash in his bag, he most likely would have been charged with possession of a controlled substance. That's only speculation, of course, since I don't know the law in Texas.

Based on the limited info in the article, the most likely scenarios that come to my mind are:

A) His bag had an ETD alarm. TSOs tried to take him for a pat-down, and he refused, failing to respect their authoritah. They immediately called the cops and falsely portrayed him as a threat, and the cops locked him up for disorderly conduct based on the TSA lie. It's happened before.

B) His bag had an ETD alarm. TSOs tried to take him for a pat-down, and he flipped out and went Busey-Gibson on them with a wild-eyed anti-governmental big-brother fascists-in-our-pants rant, and refused to leave the c/p but demanded that he be allowed to fly without any further screening, and the cops ultimately arrested him to shut him up and clear the scene.

Of course, the truth could be something in between, or something completely different. We'll have to wait for the c/p video.

LostInAmerica

At least he had a sense of humor about it later.

HawaiiTrvlr

That is pretty good. Glad he can laugh about it now.