TSA officers bar Florida teen with autism from flying; airport director apologizes
 

TSA screeners appear to have once again botched the screening of a special needs passenger. 18 year old with autism selected for not one but two invasive pat downs.

TSA officers bar Florida teen with autism from flying

If TSA really cared all screeners would be taught how to deal with persons of any need, and held accountable when unable to do so.

Well, in this particular situation, a Tallahassee police officer was just as culpable.

Yeah, I'll agree with that.

So, TSA screws up and traumatizes an autistic kid, and their plan for not doing it again includes schooling PASSENGERS on what to do at the checkpoint. Typical TSA. "We screwed up really badly, but if only YOU would do something different, maybe next time we won't screw up so badly."

I bet if a TSO ever murdered someone, TSA would probably put out a pamphlet on how to not provoke TSOs to violence.

That's SOP for TSA and has been for years: it's always the passenger's fault.

It's nice that the airport director wants to put signs in the airport pointing people to TSA Cares, but since they are supposed to be called 72 hours before a flight, what good is that going to do in a situation like this?

Further, Pollard is the airport director not the FSD. I doubt the airport director is going to have much luck getting TSA to change its ways.

As the OP wrote: "If TSA really cared all screeners would be taught how to deal with persons of any need, and held accountable when unable to do so."

Here are TSA's "TSO in the Know" guidance documents on passengers w/ autism and "courtesy and respect for ALL passengers".

I requested that they give me all of their training materials on disabilities, and those are the only two that are applicable (there are a couple others about the fact that it's a legal obligation under the Rehabilitation Act). So if they have any other training re autism, they lied to me about its existence.

That's it? No wonder there are so many complaints from travelers with disabilities as there is NOTHING about actual screening procedures in these documents. My question would be: Is any hands-on training done or are screeners only given these handouts that is supposed to suffice for "training"?

I would lean towards TSA lying in all cases.

edit to add: Is "TSA in the Know" considered to be SOP's? If not then TSA clearly with held information.

I have no evidence to show that such training is done, despite having asked for all such records, and TSA claiming there were no more to give me other than SOPs per se etc. (which are not training documents).

TTBOMK it is not, but I have not asked or received a formal answer about that. I suppose I may as well ask TSA's litigation counsel, though. May have answer soon.

I feel sorry for the kid. I have a nephew who is autistic. But when the kid started acting out and swinging his arms towards the TSA rep, what was that rep supposed to do? I suppose he could give the kid 5-10 minutes to cool down and then finish the pat down. But he doesn't know this kid. If this person is going to be violent, then TSA has to address that before it becomes an issue on the plane. Yes maybe it was a mistake by the TSA to insist on that second pat down.

The kid didn't act out until TSA demanded a second pat down. Based on the clothing he had on I suggest the second pat down was punitive in nature. Besides, TSA should train their screeners to handle people of all circumstances. The handicapped have as much right to travel by air as the next person.

How should they handle an autistic person who gets upset? Lots of people get upset about TSA.

Edit: A lot of us wish we could hit someone in TSA.

I'm not trained in dealing with the autistic but would think backing off and letting the father deal with the kid would have been a good start. Again, TSA knows people of all types will present for screening and should train knowing that fact.

In the Tallahassee Democrat:

18 years in, a gazillion Americans screened and they still don't know how to deal with autistic kids?
Not to mention miserably failing every screening test.
How much more incompetence needs to be demonstrated before we decide to get someone capable of running TSA if we're going to pay for a TSA.

Based on what I read on these forums, it seems they don't let parents get involved in screening... or do they?