TSA screener charged with assault, harassment
 

http://www.ctpost.com/policereports/...nt-4250263.php

I'll respond to this as I've responded to many posts ... this doesn't have anything to do with travel safety & security. It's just schadenfreude.

If he'd been charged with assault and/or harassment for acts committed at a checkpoint, that would be another story entirely, of course.

But it does.

It goes to show that thorough background checks (through which TSOs presumably go) can be meaningless in predicting someone's behavior.

Yet we are led to believe that someone who has successfully flown 50,000 miles the past year without blowing up a plane is to be trusted more than someone who's only flown 20,000.

Plus, if this is how he treats his mother, a person that cared for him, and his psychiatrist, a person that cares for his well-being, how do you think he treats the serfs in line at the airport?

Yes, he have go to psychiatrist evaluation for 72-hours. His behavior is not good. He needs to see the doctor. He didn't take his medication. I wasn't aware of it. He needs to get a treatment. His behavior that he doesn't change.

I live in Southwestern CT, the local newspaper says the he had been seeing a psychiatrist for over 10 years and was on medications, what type the article did not name.

He harassed and threatened his psychiatrist in the parking lot of his office, repeatedly called his office during the day and his psychiatrist was the one who called the police. His psychiatrist stated that he appeared to be wacked out on something while Wilkie’s Defense Attorney claimed at the court hearing that he was off his medications that day.

I know that a lot of people live a normal life while under the care of a psychiatrist, did Wilkie disclose this information to the TSA when he applied for his job, he was hired 9 years ago so he was under a psychiatrist’s care when he was hired.

I don’t know the laws that this information is required on a federal job application, but he had to go through a background check to get his federal security clearance and I would assume this would have been discovered on a background check.

His hiring date would fall into the time period when the TSA was hiring by the thousands when it was later found out that they hired screeners with criminal backgrounds so it looks like he was one of those who might have managed to slip in because of faulty background checks

Mr. Elliott

So his off duty behavior has no bearing to his on duty behavior?

I think it has everything to do with travel safety & security.

Unless this guy has multiple personalities, one for work and another one while he is off-duty, it has everything to do with travel safety & security.

Bello said he had Wilkie's medications and his mother would be able to help get them to Wilkie if he could be released on bond. Bello said Wilkie had a clean criminal record and was not a flight risk, because he used to live with his mother in Stamford.

Supervisory Assistant State's Attorney Steven Weiss said Wilkie has been a TSA screener for nine years and he was concerned because Wilkie had reportedly been planning on getting a gun.



Yeah, he's the perfect person to get a gun.

So, apparently Mom is willing to take him back.

Sad to day, and this has nothing to do with the thread, when he was arrested on Friday for the Assault on the doctor the judge should never have let him go for a $10K bond.

Or as the NY Post says

‘Psycho’ JFK screener busted

> I would assume this would have been discovered on a background check.

The background check required for TSOs is little more than a credit check and
looking for any open warrants.

If lied on his job appl, or omitted a material fact, he can be fired and possibly
charged under the false statements act.

WRT striking his mother; dunno if NY laws would consider that domestic
violence. If his mother gets a PPO, they almost always include restrictions
re: guns.

Wonder why none of the BDOs caught on to him.

Mike

Perhaps because the crimes he is accused of committing had nothing to do with checkpoint security, and therefore there was nothing for the BDOs to detect?

Seriously ... we complain when TSOs/BDOs are trying to make "The Big Catch" and find people involved in mischief that has nothing to do with travel safety (e.g. smuggling drugs). Why should we then expect TSOs/BDOs to detect that a fellow TSO is guilty of assaulting people outside of the airport? Wouldn't that the same "scope creep" we preach against here?

[crawling back into my corner now]

If they are going to continue to expand their mission in search of "The Big Catch" and 15 minutes of fame, why not focus on their own?

To date, there have been far more 'bad apple' TSOs than pax, and far more 'bad apple' TSOs have actually ended up in the news and in jail for misconduct on the job.

I would prefer more targeted and stringent attention to TSA employees than pax, because a 'bad apple' TSO has a much greater ability to wreak havoc than a 'bad apple' pax.

We have nearly two dozen 'layers' of attention to every pax; we have only one 'layer' to check up on a TSO (a one-time background check; many of the early ones were poorly conducted, if at all, or are conducted months after the TSO has been on the job).

From a point of view of consistency ... sure. If TSA is going to continue expanding their view of administrative searches well beyond those limits, then absolutely they should train that eye inward as well.

Personally, I'd rather see them be consistent in the other direction, limiting the scope of their inquiries (both internal and external) to the immediate matter of securing air travel. But to each his/her own ...

I agree absolutely, but I think we both know, that's not going to happen. The most we can hope for now is to slow the pace of intrusion and expansion. There's no going back, unfortunately.