Don't forget. You don't know whether she deliberately spilled the liquid or not.

LOL. Pretty clear that she did. But if you want to believe that she didn't, then that's your choice. She wasn't innocent in her actions.

Before this goes too far off the deep end, I truly hate seeing situations like this go sour. Even when I deal with unreasonable, angry people who are looking for a fight, I try to find ways to defuse the situation. Could that have been done here? Probably. But it's pretty hard to seek ways to calm a passenger down when that person is swearing at you, as she apparently did in this situation. Still, as I tell my officers: we aren't paid to get angry.

It's an unfortunate situation; however, it takes two to tango, and she definitely tango'ed.

Never confuse what you know with what you suspect. If you follow that rule, you'll be right about more things.

If I'm not mistaken, I think she admitted to it during one of the morning show interviews; and there are witness statements that she did, in fact, intentionally spill the cup right at the exit.

But you can continue with your denial.

So simply consuming the contents then and there is NOT an option ? Did she not offer to do so just wanting to keep the cup, which to those familiar with small children is a BFD indeed. Had she been allowed to do so, then big non-event.

Unfortunately it is not an option. My scientific wild a** guess (SWAG) is that at one time we used to require passengers to take a sip from their drinks whenever they carried one into the checkpoint that could not be sealed and sent through the x-ray. If you recall, TSA got a lot of heat from the urban myths regarding a little girl who drank from a cup that had a frog inside of it and the woman who allegedly was forced to sip her own breast milk. At any rate, I think this is probably the reason why TSA won't allow the option of drinking the liquid at the checkpoint.

And she was, in fact, given the standard option of leaving the checkpoint to empty the cup and then return (after re-screening). Just to give you a little insight, 99% of the time, passengers opt to abandon their cups, drinks, containers, etc. at the checkpoint rather than go through re-screening. A fair number of those people later complain that they were forced to give up their cup, drink, container, etc.

Exactly.

Is this the kind of reaction one would expect from someone supposedly trained to protect public officials? She was told to take her water outside and this "traumatized" her? This soccer mom needs to apologize and be thankful she wasn't arrested, which is what she deserved.

The video clearly speaks for itself. She deliberately dumped the cup out.

::shakes head in disgust::

Leaving open the possibility that aliens robbed Emmerson of her free will, the video clearly shows her deliberately dumping the water.

i was a screener at LAX (TBIT). I used to allow PAX to drink their fluids all the time, up until a passenger with a bottle of pepsi came through. I hadn't even said anything when I took out the bottle from his backpack, when he gave me an attitude saying how absurd everything is.. Which I sympathized with, ...

anyhow, I allowed him to take a few sips at the checkpt and as he opened the bottle, it burst and pepsi was all over the place. all over my shirt (had to wear a jacket the rest of the night), floor, table, etc. i remained calm, he handed me the bottle, and as i was wiping down the floor, he remarked that it was my fault, and i shouldn't have let him drink it there. his snide remark with a smirk just irritated me, ... he was laughing and got a nice kick outta seeing me wipe the floor and tables as he pranced to the business class lounge..

thats the long and short of it all and why i never let anyone just drink it RIGHT THERE.

Not only does it show her dumping the water intentionally, but immediately after she did that, she tried the U-turn back into the secure area. She's essentially saying "there, no more water, now get out of my way and let me catch my flight."

There's an additional point. We are supposed to live under the law. Where on earth is there a law that allows someone to order Emmerson to swab the floor?

A 14-year old boy and there was no frog. Both incidents well and indisputedly documented. As well you know, since I have provided the links more than once.

Good for you in showing some common sense in the first place. I understand why carbonated drinks, cans of beer etc. can't be opened there, but this was a sippy cup full of water FFS.

OK alleged water, I suppose she could have been trying to smuggle booze in her child's cup. Yeah, sure.

I allowed a person to drink from a water bottle one time, and it ended up being vodka... he nearly puked...

anyways, no more letting PAX drink ... too much hassle to wait and watch them drink, hope they return the bottle to you without taking off.

... what's up with the exit lane TSO? He seems to have some sort of OCD, moving the stantion sign over and over.