chollie

I guess we're supposed to believe that in a time of furloughs and cutbacks, it took six TSOs to determine what this object was and how much it might be worth on Ebay, I mean, how to dispose of it.

I'm not familiar with mace - does it usually disperse in a cloud big enough to nail half a dozen actively engage professionals in one focused blast?

FliesWay2Much

It looks like he was promoted to SPOTNik in August 2011. Both of my folks are in a nursing home. I don't think I want this idiot in the same area code.

mamb0

I honestly do not understand where your problem is.
They are improving.
Normally they confuse toddlers with suicide bombers, toothpaste with C4 and crippled grandmothers in wheelchairs for terrorists.

So that is great step forward. Actually.

Letitride3c

He's a Master TSO - perhaps he was pretending to be a trainer ...

It depends on the particular mace spray that he found - typical ones used by LEO have a safety cover/guard and deliver a narrow focused OC spray out to a distance of 8-15 feet, and each burst usually 5 seconds but some will continue as long as you hold the button down.

His other job with BFS is working with children (& their families) with special development needs and thankfully, not with elderly - the agency has multiple locations within NYC, the closest one at nearby Jamaica ... Good grief, he should be required and received official NYS Child Abuse & Neglect Training and is a "Mandated Reporter" working with children, and yet work for TSA

FlyingHoustonian

Hey, you know people, this guy was just doing his job and made mistake. We all make mistakes sometimes. Cut the guy some slack ok!
How quickly you all forget 11 Sept 2001 and what these brave folks are protecting us from. Think twice before mocking this hard working public servant.
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hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaha

chollie

TSA instituted the 'no joking, guilty until proven innocent, zero tolerance' policy at the checkpoint, not me.

Otherwise, I'd probably cut the guy a little bit of slack - after all, he didn't hurt pax, he only hurt the taxpayers' pocketbooks and his co-workers, who wouldn't have gotten sprayed if they'd actually been doing something besides gawking around.

RadioGirl

And NOW he can add "Can distinguish between pepper spray and laser pointers" to his impressive resume.

Boggie Dog

Can he?

Schmurrr

Maybe it looked like this. It says POINT, and there's a red dot on it.

WillCAD

Well, first let's differentiate - this was pepper spray, an entirely different animal than traditional mace or tear gas. However, all of these chemical agents do have a few things in common.

The small personal canisters are not designed to fog an area with a cloud. The grenades used by riot police put out a cloud, but these chemical personal defence weapons are designed to shoot a tightly concentrated stream of the chemical agent over a long distance. Depending on the brand, size, and type of canister, some of them can shoot 3-5m. The idea is to be able to target a specific individual, preferably in the face or chest, from as far away as you can get, since the individual you're targeting is most likely trying to harm you anyway.

However, the chemical agents used in those canisters is foul, foul stuff, and even a small spray will contaminate quite a large area and affect everyone around. If one of those things accidentally discharges in the midst of a crowd of slacking leeches, er, TSO's not currently engaged in the performance of their duties, the resulting chemical spray will contaminate an area at least 2m in diameter, and perhaps larger if it's a large canister or if it was sprayed for a longer period of time.

So it's not surprising that a single, accidental spray, probably a very brief spray, was enough to send six Masters to the hospital.

What's surprising is that it shut down the lines for 15 minutes, because, obviously, these six weren't doing any screening while they were playing with the shiny binky that one of them found on the floor, so having them all out of action shouldn't have affected screening at all, right?

chollie

I'm actually kind of impressed that the checkpoint was only shut down for 15 minutes. JFK pax got very lucky, IMHO.

I'm surprised they didn't do a terminal dump and tape review to find the pax who left the item behind (or perhaps a review of the tapes will show that it was 'surrendered' but that instead of being immediately binned, as appropriate, it was set aside for further private personal inspection by the admiring TSO who confiscated it).

I guess we should also be grateful that talk of arming at least some checkpoint TSOs has never gone further than just talk.

cordelli

I kind of like the way The Blaze summed it all up

“Officers were examining an abandoned item to determine its contents and to move it out of harm’s way when it accidentally discharged,” said the TSA in a statement to ABCNews.com.

Translation: Under-worked and overpaid TSA worker wanted to use a laser pointer to annoy his coworkers. Instead, he pepper-sprayed them.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/03...-spray-at-jfk/

Ysitincoach

TSA Administrator John Pistole has declared the TSA “the gold standard of aviation security.”

Flaflyer

And here I thought TSA was supposed to find these guys, not immitate them.