According to TSA News Blog, the latest TSA craze is to yank down your pants, and then arrest you for indecent exposure. With video goodness (badness).

So many defective employees. The man still has his hands in the air waiting for them to finish, and the screeners can't seem to figure out how to operate the pants. The police then arrest the man for defective pants, instead of the defective screeners.

I'm torn. I kind of like the old policy of taking you behind closed doors first, then forcibly yanking down your pants and panties/underwear (as happened to 3 elderly women in the NYC area over Thanksgiving, if you recall). And at least then, you can still catch your flight - except if they lacerate your leg with your walking cane, but they book you on the next one.

But at least with the new method you get to keep your underwear on.

He's an artist and musician. I wish there had been audio - I bet he was taking a stand!

The video wasn't clear enough for me to tell if he was or not....

Am I missing something or does the "graphic nudity" the blogger mentions not exist. I see the guy as wearing underwear. Anyone see different?

Maybe it's blurred; I can't quite tell.

I was thinking along with one commenter that he overdid it himself a bit too, but one of the commenters pointed out, they can get testy if you try to adjust your pants during the procedure.

I just don't get it. It's not like some slapstick thing where someone had loose pants and they suddenly slipped. I mean, the screener takes the pants in both hands and *yoink*! Then they act like, "why did that happen?!?"

Oh great, I'm in the world's dullest meeting and you've got me laughing out loud. Sure, the incident itself is (predictably) infuriating, but your description is brilliant!

I think when his pants are first pulled down, it looks pretty clear that he is wearing underwear (t-shirt one colour, underwear another colour and then his legs - darker). Later on in the vid, it is not so clear, because his skin on legs does not show.

DanishFlyer

Look how easy it would be for a group working together to essentially disable the AIT technology for a period of time....

While we all (well most of us) can take issue with how the TSA handled the situation...

I'm a bit more concerned in how the police handled it. They walked up and immediately put him in handcuffs and walked him out of the checkpoint / view of the camera. There was one TSA person who appears to talk to them as they are arriving, but they never stop walking until they get to him and start to place him in handcuffs. And as soon as that is done, they walk him out.

I suppose they could have been observing just off camera, but it would appear that the TSA called them in from somewhere else and they had just arrived when they appear on camera.

...let me guess... it was done "for [the passenger's] and the [officer's] protection", right?



Edited to add:

Then again, this is the same airport that noted on official police reports an "irate" senator and an out-of-control mother. (A police force that all but admitted it violated a woman's first amendment rights.) I guess I'm glad to know I haven't just written it off as "well that's how it works at that airport". Appears to me, some housecleaning needs to occur there.

This appears to be a bit older than I expected... none the less, my comments above stand...

Per the Davidson County website, the arrest occured on June 19, 2011...

From the affidavits...

and

...both charges were dismissed on July 13, 2011.

Haha, that made my day! Happy to help.

Good. I'd be ticked if someone yanked on my pants and then put their hands on their hips because they couldn't find the operating manual.

I agree, the police response wasn't the best way to handle it, I think.

What is wrong with that airport? They seem to go above and beyond in terms of being [insert term that would get me a FT time-out].

Mike

From what I saw, it looked pretty clear that the clerk pulled down the guy's pants. It's hard to say what happened after that. I can speculate from my own experience that the clerk probably made it the guy's fault that his pants fell down and started threatening him. The observation that the guy didn't pull up his pants right away indicate to me that there was some heated exchanges going on. The fact that the cops arrested him so quickly and added the disorderly conduct charge on top of indecent exposure could be attributed to -- OK, I'll say it -- his race and the location where the harassment took place.

I say "from my own experience" because my jeans have almost fallen completely down during my last two gropings at IAD. I'm a runner and have a pretty slim lower body. Jeans, even ones my size, don't tend to stay up very well on a slim waist without a belt.

Last week, the clerk ordered me to place one finger inside one belt loop on each side (literally were his orders) and hold up my pants. I suspect that the TSA is so paranoid about accusations of performing strip searches that clerks have explicit instructions about how to deal with wardrobe malfunctions -- one of which is to make sure it's the passenger's fault.

Perhaps partly because of his 'ethnic' appearance, he decided to err on the side of caution. Any sudden moves to grab his pants could have also led to a bad end. In fact, he seemed to be very very careful to not shift his position - I suspect he's been harassed before.

If you keep watching the video, there's another guy who comes through in light-colored shorts. The TSO must have said something to him, because he sort of tugs up the waistband of his shorts - didn't look like he was demonstrating 'no belt', looked more like the TSO was making sure the shorts were going to stay in place.

Wish Paul had known about this before his little episode. I'm getting a little sick of all pax being described as 'hostile', 'aggressive', 'irate', 'threatening' - all code words to justify overly-aggressive responses, including tasers.

I don't think there's any doubt he did, putting the victim in a no-win situation. Pull your pants up - interfering with screening; leave them down - interfering with screening (eventually).

Nicely done by the po-po though , but that shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone.