Originally Posted by studentff

You've got an interesting point, particularly with regard to the child fighting back. (If the parents fight back, they'll just be detained, abused, and arrested, as we've seen when one spouse tried to defend another. )

However, a school-aged child who has been (properly) taught to react harshly to inappropriate touching by strangers or even to being separated from their parents in a way that suggests abduction could react against an unsuspecting TSO with a non-trivial amount of force, possibly to the point of causing moderate to serious injury. (At least in my childhood, kids were routinely taught what vulnerable body regions to target in the event of an assault or attempted abduction.)

While I don't which permanent injury on anyone, I do wonder how TSA would react. It would be a PR nightmare to have the kid detained, arrested, or fined for "assaulting a screener," and if the kid were cute enough and the parents smart enough, it would make a huge media story, particularly when it came out what the TSO was doing at the moment of the assault. Going after the parents likely wouldn't be any more successful, and while IANAL, I'm not convinced that common sense would allow the parents to be held liable/responsible for what the kid thought was an act of self defense.