Originally Posted by
WillCAD
{Edited to add: I'm going by the video on the USAToday story here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...ight/88590390/ }
At 2:14 in the video, the cop gestures with his right hand as if to indicate "go over there" or "something is over there." The girl subtly shakes her head in a "no" gesture at this, and at 2:15, he steps in very close to the girl and grabs her upper right arm with his left hand. To me it also appears that he's trying to gently shove her in the same direction he had gestured, as if to force her to move. In reaction to this, the girl flinches away and attempts to gain some distance, but the cop grabs both of her arms with his hands and the struggle ensues.
The questions I have about this:
1) Had the cop ordered her to go somewhere and she refused?
2) Was the cop arresting or detaining her as part of a criminal investigation?
3) Exactly why did the cop lay his hands on her at all?
The fact that the charges against her were dropped could have indicated one of three things:
* The prosecutor may have reviewed the situation and realized that the cop's actions in laying hands on her were unjustified
* The prosecutor may not have wanted to get in front of a jury and paint a 19 year old cancer patient with cognitive difficulties as a danger to a cop who outweighed her by about 20 pounds of pure muscle, even if the cops actions were entirely justified
* The girl's cognitive issues may have made her non-responsible, legally speaking, for her actions
Another thing I've noticed, though; the mother's claims that she was kept far away from her daughter and not allowed to explain her daughter's condition to the TSA and police are hogwash. She was literally within arm's reach of the daughter throughout the entire incident, except from 0:26 to 0:43 when the daughter goes to the belt to retreiver her belongings while the mother sits on a bench. In addition, the mother, daughter, cop, and a suited man whom I assume was a TSM, spend the time from 0:43 to 2:14 holding an extended 4-way conversation.
The mother can be seen clearly speaking to the cop, to the TSM, and to the daughter, and the TSM appears to speak to the daughter as well (his back is turned to the camera but his left arm gesticulates as many people do when they're speaking).
So she was not separated from her daughter by TSA or the PD until the struggle ensues, at which time she is physically removed by the second cop (using minimal and appropriate force, IMHO) to prevent her from joining in the fight. And she had an extended 1:31 conversation in which she could have (and probably did) explain her daughter's condition to the cop and TSM.
I don't know how bad the daughter's cognitive issues are, but this case does not appear to be as cut and dried as many people think. Neither side seems to be 100% at fault or 100% without fault to me, based on the video, but I am leaning toward saying that the majority of the fault goes to the mother and daughter, rather than the PD, and I put pretty much zero blame on TSA in this situation (there's a switch!)
Each time I watch this video, I see something I hadn't seen before.
At 0:44, the cop is pointing with his right hand. It's difficult to say because of the angle, but he looks like he's pointing at the mother, who at that moment was seated on the bench.
But then at 1:09, the TSM (man in the suit) also gestures with his right hand. It's fuzzy, so I can't be sure, but he could be pointing off to the right.
At 1:11, the cop gestures with his left hand, again pointing to the right.
Additionally, there is a female TSO in the frame from the beginning of the video. She's standing off to the left at first, facing the camera, and at about 0:32 she moves to talk to the TSM, and at about 0:52 she moves right and stands roughly behind the TSM and the cop with her back to the camera. She doesn't appear to be part of the conversation, but she stands there waiting throughout. At 2:15 when the cop grabs the daughter, the female TSO moves back to the left again, and a few seconds later when the cop takes the daughter down, the female TSO retreats out of camera range quickly.
Putting all of this in context, another theory has occurred to me.
What if the TSM was trying to get the daughter to go into a private room for a resolution pat down?
We know she alarmed either the WBI or WTMD and needed some kind of pat down to resolve the alarm. But in my experience, targeted area pat-downs for WBI resolution are done so quickly that most people don't have the time to refuse. "Stand there" you're told, and someone rubs his hands on your torso or thigh for a moment, after which you're allowed to move on.
But this looks more like she alarmed and was being told to go for one of the mandatory private room full-body rubdowns with genital contact that TSA laughably calls a pat down. I think that's why the TSM and the cop were gesturing to the right - that could be where the penalty box is - and I think the cop eventually lost patience and *ordered* the daughter to *go over there right now*, which she refused with her cursory shake of the head. Then the cop decided to assert his authoritah by grabbing the daughter's arm and perp walking her to the penalty box.
The daughter, perhaps not fully appreciating the consequences of refusing a perp walk from an impatient cop, jerked herself free, after which the cop grabbed both of her wrist and attempted to physically control her. And that's when she started flailing about like a toddler throwing a fit. At 2:26 she did indeed land a single closed-fist child-like tantrum blow on the cops left bicep.
The rest of the struggle, if you view it through the goggles of someone who has experience with children, is a classic toddler temper tantrum. Look at her arms and legs from about 2:35 to 2:45 - she's pulling her arms away from the cop and kicking her feet in much the same way that a three or four year old child would when mommy or daddy is trying to dress them for bed. At one point before the cop got the cuffs out, she was actually folding her hands under her body to prevent him from getting a good grip on them.
Given this new perspective, I am forced to wonder exactly what kind of alarm the daughter set off, and what kind of resolution the TSM proposed. Most alarms can be resolved with a targeted area pat down or a wanding, but I believe now that the TSA people were insisting on a private room full-body rubdown with genital contact as a resolution to the alarm, and allowed for no more palatable alternatives. If that's the case, then I'll have to re-evaluate my judgement that TSA bears no blame for this incident - they may, through their stupid, myopic inflexibility, have set two freight trains on a collision course with each other and stood well clear of the inevitable crash.