Originally Posted by
sbrower
Lots of misinformation here (no offense intended to the posters - legal stuff is complicated).
1. It is okay to make a U-turn at a drunk driving stop (at least in California and certain other states). In fact, they are REQUIRED to have an "escape route" as part of the check point, and they can't use someone's choice to "opt out" as reason to stop them.
2. TSA employees, as private citizens, have the right to hold and detain someone who they suspect of a crime (but, in most states, it needs to be a felony). HOWEVER, as a matter of DHS policy, TSA employees are *not* allowed to arrest, etc.
3. As noted by some posters, sexual assault type crimes just about always (I don't know of an exception, but I have heard there are some, I would appreciate a post of details) require a desire to obtain sexual gratification. Indeed, if you touch someone else on the elbow (an example of a non-typical sexual portion of the body), with the intent to obtain sexual gratification, then it is a sexual assault, at least in California.
Also, technically, doesn't the decision by the 9th circuit only apply within the 9th circuit pending a Supreme Court decision (or rulings by other circuits to the same effect)? If the OP is in Dallas, isn't it possible that the standard is different there and based on different case law?
As to the OP's situation, I'd probably have turned around and started walking. If the cops had already shown up I'd have asked if they planned to arrest me for turning around and quietly walking away and, assuming they answered in the negative, I'd have turned and walked away.
Finally, as I understand it, there are things that even LEOs will tell you "you have to do" in order to intimidate you into doing them, but if you refuse and don't give them another reason to arrest you they won't do because they have no legal basis for doing them. So the TSA can have a rule saying you cannot leave the checkpoint but I don't see much of a mechanism of enforcement. Civil penalties (issued after the fact) or not, I see not one thing that allows them to force you to do anything if your intentions are to not fly.