A TSA agent in Texas was captured on camera by the mother of a young boy conducting a pat-down that many on social media say amounts to an inappropriate search during a detainment that lasted more than an hour, resulting in the family missing their flight.
Grapevine resident Jennifer Williams posted the two-minute video taken at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Facebook Sunday.
“We were treated like dogs,” Williams posted on Facebook saying she was “livid” over the ordeal.
Video shows the Transportation Security Administration agent running his hand up the boy’s crotch several times while standing behind the boy, then moving to the front and searching the same area he’d already searched.
Williams explained on Facebook that her son, Aaron, suffers from Sensory Processing Disorder, so she requested an alternative screening.
That apparently resulted in a rather intensive and intrusive pat down on the boy, who they detained for over an hour after her request as two Dallas/Fort Worth cops stood by to observe the search.
The mother explained that her son went through the detector at the airport just fine and set off no alarms.
Williams wrote she and her son were forced to miss their flight as a result of the detainment, which she said lasted well over an hour while two DFW airport cops stood by to observe.
We have been through hell this morning. They detained Aaron for well over an hour at DFW. (And deliberately kept us from our flight… we are now on an alternate) We were treated like dogs because I requested they attempt to screen him in other ways per TSA rules. He has SPD and I didn’t want my child given a pat down like this. Let me make something else crystal clear. He set off NO alarms. He physically did not alarm at all during screening, he passed through the detector just fine. He is still several hours later saying “I don’t know what I did. What did I do?” I am livid. Please, share… make this viral like the other children’s videos with TSA… I wish I had taped the entire interchange because it was horrifying. We had two DFW police officers that were called and flanking him on each side. Somehow these power tripping TSA agents who are traumatizing children and doing whatever they feel like without any cause, need to be reined in.
The video now is reaching almost one million views and has been shared almost 20,000 times.
