petaluma1

Why does TSA demand that people wearing boot casts due to foot injuries & force people to walk through scanner, when doing so could easily do further damage to the injured area?

BTW, this might be old news, but it seems TSA has done away with the x-ray machines they formerly used to screen non-removable casts.

fgirard

And, from personal experience, some TSOs want to place crutches on the x-ray belt too...

chollie

There was another report just this morning. A pax was forced to get out of his wheelchair for an attempted scan. He couldn't do it, so he got back in the wheelchair and they went out of their way to manhandle his cast and cause him pain.

TSA is clearly showing the direction the new leadership wants to take. Militant, aggressive, and retaliatory.

Supposedly TSA continues to have hiring and retention issues. Could it possibly be because decent ordinary folks don't want to grope testicles and rub vaginas of underage children all day long - and they get uncomfortable watching TSOs who enjoy harassing quadriplegic former athletes in wheelchairs and underage children and breast-feeding mothers?

It takes a particular mindset to abuse people like this all day long and enjoy it. I certainly couldn't do it.

fgirard

You mean, "how dare those peons (us travelers) want to travel and make us work!"

I do know that my grandmother (who has an artificial leg) was asked by a screener a few years ago to remove her leg. Thankfully a supervisor was around to counter the demand, and just allow the TSO to remove the covering around the leg to make it look more real.

petaluma1

I recall reading that this morning but couldn't find it again. But here's a compilation of complaints about treatment of those who use wheelchairs:

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&...chair&src=typd

Bogwoppit

When I was on crutches after foot surgery they took away my crutches and made me hop through. Luckily I am generally fit, but it was ridiculous. They asked if I could walk, I said clearly not or I would not be using crutches!

chollie

I imagine many TSOs would read the tweets from the woman who is on oxygen, uses a wheelchair, and now avoids travel because TSA consistently humiliates her.

I think we all know that a professional, well-run organization that took it's mission seriously would be following up with every single one of these pax - and checking cameras and disciplining TSOs and the LTSOs and STSOs who stand around jacking their jaws and letting this stuff happen.

Instead, I think most of them are delighted to read this woman's post. They hate pax like her who mean work.

petaluma1

Then why didn't you refuse to do it?!?!?!? You were being used to provide a laugh to the screeners on "duty".

chollie

It's their training. They are taught that all pax are guilty and everything a pax says is designed to circumvent screening and smuggle contraband. This is why it is a bad idea to describe 'sensitive areas' to your gropers. They are trained that the bad guys will hide contraband on their body (usually between their butt cheeks or in the genital area or under fake bandages), so anyone declaring a 'sensitive area' is trying to avoid rigorous inspection of that area. TSOs are trained to double down on 'sensitive areas'.

If you don't flinch or cry out in pain when they handle you, it proves that you lied and the area wasn't really sensitive. Clearly the only reason someone would lie about something like that is if s/he was concealing contraband.

Bogwoppit

Option was to sit and wait whilst they brought a wheelchair. It is just an exercise in idiocy dealing with minimum wage workers who cannot problem solve basic things.

bo1953

To be sure, those who have 'compassion' and understanding, which they would want these individuals to receive, will not step up and take such jobs, correct? So the issue is what?

We get those individuals who want or need jobs and do not understand compassion, as it were.

My point is, if we do not like the way we are sometimes treated in these types of situations, we better pony up and take some of these jobs to show others how it is done.... otherwise you will continue to look at these employees as pariah.

safe travels

chollie

They would have doubled down with a punitive delay. There are increasing reports of just that: 25 minute waits for opt-out gropes are common, bag check waits as long as 50 minutes.

He could have expedited the situation by falling down and yelling loudly in pain. If he continued to moan loudly, they would have wanted him cleared before cellphone cameras started coming out.

chollie

There was a time, a few short years ago, when I fully intended to apply at TSA. The pay and benefits (especially the bonuses) of a federal job - I was all for it.

Then the NoS and the gropes started and I changed my mind. Good thing I did, because things have only gotten worse.

I'm sorry - there is no 'compassionate' way for an adult male to kneel with his face inches from the crotch and buttocks of a 13-year-old boy while he spends two minutes rubbing and stroking the boy's penis and testicles. There is no 'compassionate' way to stick your hand under the body of a partially-paralyzed wheelchair bound man while you probe his anus and nudge his testicles. There is no 'compassionate' way to probe and pinch and rub the chest of a woman who is still healing from a mastectomy. There is no 'compassionate' way to probe and grope terrified screaming toddlers or slightly older tots who don't welcome strange hands in their diapers and between their legs.

The economy is doing fine now. There is no reason someone is 'trapped' in a TSA job and can't do better. I'm reluctantly forced to admit that anyone who is a TSO now enjoys doing the above things and enjoys watching others handle people this way.

It's pretty clear to me that the LTSO who pushed the wrong gender button on the NoS was doing the same thing the DEN TSO was doing, except he wants to watch female TSOs stroke and fondle female pax.

All these TSOs forcing people to remove walking boots and get out of their wheelchairs - sounds just like what happened to some wounded vets at PHX a couple years ago. Nothing new, TSA is just ramping up the abuse of people guilty of traveling while injured or wounded.

chollie

Grrr. What is it this morning? Second dupe.

petaluma1

Allow plenty of time, let them know you have all the time in the world to wait on them, turn the tables on them.

Falling down on a broken ankle probably isn't smart, but grabbing on to whatever one can and howling in pain should do the trick.