Patterico's Pontifications

7/1/2016

Loathsome TSA Bloodies And Bruises Young Woman During Screening Process. Did I Mention She Is Partially Deaf, Blind In One Eye, Paralyzed, Easily Confused? Oh, And She Also Has A Brain Tumor

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:36 am



[guest post by Dana]

An obvious threat to national security:

Bloodied and bruised Hannah Cohen was led from Memphis International Airport in handcuffs.

The 19-year old was headed home to Chattanooga after treatment for a brain tumor at St. Jude Hospital.

It’s a trip they’ve made for 17-years.

This time, an unarmed Hannah, set off the metal detector at a security checkpoint

“They wanted to do further scanning, she was reluctant, she didn’t understand what they were about to do,” said her mother Shirley Cohen.

Cohen told us she tried to tell TSA agents her daughter is partially deaf, blind in one eye, paralyzed, and easily confused, but said she was kept at a distance by police.

“She’s trying to get away from them but in the next instant, one of them had her down on the ground and hit her head on the floor. There was blood everywhere,” said Cohen.

Hannah was arrested, booked and on the night she should have been celebrating the end of her treatment, she was locked up in Jail East.

Charges were eventually dropped against Hannah, but her family has filed lawsuits against Memphis Airport, Airport Police, and the Transportation Security Administration.

In response to this horrible event, TSA rep Sari Koshetz said, “Passengers can call ahead of time to learn more about the screening process for their particular needs or medical situation.”

This is the same TSA that saw a staggering 95% failure rate when airport screeners failed to stop Homeland Security agents armed with guns, fake bombs and other contraband from making it through the screening process 67 out of 70 times during a nation-wide test of the system. But throw a disabled young woman in their midst, and they’ll take her down before you can say abusive behavior.

But hey, when you consider how hard these screeners work to keep America safe by forcing 95-year old women from their wheelchairs so they can remove their adult diapers and be searched, what’s a little blood, bruising, and brain tumor?

Video at the link above.

UPDATE:

Untitled

Unfortunate situation?? Really??

If reports are inaccurate, then correct.

Did Hannah Cohen refuse to be screened or leave because she was already confused and upset by aggressive screeners as well as her mother being forcibly prevented to come to her aid, both by providing screeners with an explanation of her daughter’s physical limitations as well as being unable to physically attend to Hannah in an efforts to soothe her?

Cohen told us she tried to tell TSA agents her daughter is partially deaf, blind in one eye, paralyzed, and easily confused, but said she was kept at a distance by police.

So the police were already there, presumably called by the screeners. Hannah’s mom was restrained and unable to attend to her upset daughter. And mom was also forced to witness her daughter get knocked to the ground, bloodied and bruised, and then arrested. That’s how it’s done.

What is most unfortunate, TSA, is that it appears this assault of Hannah could have easily been avoided had her mother been allowed to explain her daughter’s own unfortunate situation and physically go to her, and mostly, had TSA screeners not been so unreasonable.

I anxiously await the TSA’s release of their accurate accounting of this most unfortunate situation.

–Dana

57 Responses to “Loathsome TSA Bloodies And Bruises Young Woman During Screening Process. Did I Mention She Is Partially Deaf, Blind In One Eye, Paralyzed, Easily Confused? Oh, And She Also Has A Brain Tumor”

  1. Nothing will happen to the agents who did this to Hannah Cohen.

    Dana (995455)

  2. If she had been a Muslim wearing a burqa, they would have feared being accused of profiling, and thus just waved her through the line.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  3. This is the kind of problem you get when you establish a federal department with the expectation of providing jobs to high school drop outs.

    TheNaBr (0c7c2f)

  4. Any joking, or treating the screeners with less than deference, is taken, very very seriously.

    No allowances are made.

    This only happens at airports.

    Sammy Finkelman (643dcd)

  5. The Barack Administration conducts itself with the highest integrity and the greatest regard for its subjects. For example, look at how well they’ve maintained the VA Hospitals. Look at the success at Benghazi. ObamaCare is the cat’s meow.
    I think any complaints about the way that this half-blind, partially-deaf, paralyzed woman with a brain tumor was treated is probably just due to partisan sniping during an election year. This must stop!

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  6. As I’ve said since this TSA fiasco was first proposed, we don’t need no stinkin’ badges. Set a high minimum wage and federal standards for detection that have to be met to get liability protection and let the airlines figure out how to serve their customers within those rules.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  7. A Microsoft VP I used to work with claimed that his blond hair, blue eyes and first class tickets meant he was always selected for extra screening, just so they could assert they were not profiling.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  8. FN tsa. Just carry your koran.

    Jim (a9b7c7)

  9. 7. I would do that on a voluntary basis but I would do it as an entre to make sure and demand 3-4 dudes that actually could use the stink-eye treatment get the twice-over. This would be the compliment to the air marshals. These “fake” extra screen-ees would then note expressions of relief and or ridicule from swarthier people.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  10. Kevin M, I don’t understand what you meant in #6. Can you esssplain?

    Rev. Hoagie® (0f4ef6)

  11. For my money it sounds like the Memphis Police may have acted every bit as badly in this episode. If it is indeed true that the mother of the young lady was trying to explain to them that her daughter was disabled and that she needed to talk to TSA agents on her behalf, and if it is indeed true that the Memphis Police invoked some stupid bureaucratic rule to keep her away, then the Memphis PD has some explaining to do.

    But, and I’m not trying to be the fly in the soup here, I can’t discount the possibility that instead of calmly explaining to police the situation, the young lady’s mother flew into some sort of hysteria which made the police suspicious and convinced them that the needed to be kept away from the situation. I’ve seen situations where the authority figures grossly exceed their authority and behave in an ugly authoritarian manner, but I’ve also seen situations where citizens fly off the handle right at the bat and become their own worst enemy.

    Aren’t there closed-circuit cameras at every security checkpoint, so shouldn’t we eventually see some video of exactly how all of this transpired?

    JVW (eabb2a)

  12. I think you make a good point, JVW. However, given past practices and rushes to extreme (and abusive) behaviors, I am not inclined to give the TSA the benefit of the doubt.

    Dana (995455)

  13. Yeah, I don’t see how any of this would account for the TSA’s hyper-aggressive actions towards the young lady, but perhaps the Memphis PD isn’t as much to blame as I initially thought.

    JVW (eabb2a)

  14. Too bad Cohen coudnt or didnt name-drop (Rep. Steven Cohen), although the situation got too hot too soon for that.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  15. Further, why shut the mother down if she were trying to explain to agents why her daughter was reacting accordingly? Wouldn’t the first thing you want to do would be to speak to whomever was accompanying the person you were concerned about? Was it necessary to bruise and bloody her and knock her to the ground?

    Dana (995455)

  16. Donald Trump has proposed that TSA screeners (many of them Muslims) be replaced with Veterans of our armed forces. Sounds like a pretty darn good idea to me.

    ropelight (596f46)

  17. If only the TSA were as aggressive with jihadists as they are with the disabled.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  18. There <b? are no jihadists at airports, and, if, once in a blue moon theer is, they don't try anything that involves suuccessfully passing through security, and when they did try passing through security, like the 9/11 hijacckers did, they didn't try to take anything that security would screen out.

    It's like the medical hygienec hypothesis. There is nothing real for the TSA to find, and nothing real to train on, so they begin attacking harmless things.

    Sammy Finkelman (09e4a9)

  19. ropelight (596f46) — 7/1/2016 @ 1:01 pm
    More precisely a member of his audience proposed it and he said it was a good idea.

    That is the woman who so mangled the word “hijab” that Trump probably had no idea what word he used when he agreed with her. My ears heard “badge” and assumed a castigating reference to TSA badge-wearers.

    kishnevi (413847)

  20. Greetings:

    She should have worn a Rama-lama-ding-dan certified hijab.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  21. Absolutely disgusting.

    Colonel Haiku (32652f)

  22. With all the fat black women working it’s as if the tsa is racist.

    mg (31009b)

  23. I am constantly amazed at the poor judgement, incompetence, arrogance and violence these “agents” and police display on a regular basis.

    It takes extraordinary efforts to get justice in these situations but the agencies simply pay with tax dollars and they obviously don’t care.

    I don’t know the solution but submitting to government tyranny is NOT the answer.

    WarEagle82 (5bf75f)

  24. To quote Loretta Lynch, we may never know what TSA’s motive was in taking this half-blind, partially-deaf teenager with a brain tumor down to the floor.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  25. TSA is to Obama as Brown Shirts were to the 3rd Reich.

    More than likely some of the thugs who assaulted this poor kid are on no-fly lists themselves … in Israel. Or they were wearing “Black Lives Matter” tees under their uniform, and thus granted immunity by fat-thighs Lynch from any consequences.

    Federal policing agents, like the TSA, now out-number the Marines.

    Retired Marines still out number the TSA.

    There is hope.

    BobStewartatHome (404986)

  26. this is quintessentially america anymore

    you’re a fundamentally transformed lil slutstate

    four more years sez dustin

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  27. Sort of a perk of the job, like shooting the family dog when doing a dynamic entry to the wrong house. And it pays off sooner than the pension.

    Richard Aubrey (472a6f)

  28. it’s like terry gilliam’s brazil sans the efficiency.

    narciso (732bc0)

  29. 18-21 yr old soldiers/Marines in Afghanistan are not allowed to act this way when mothers go apeshit protecting their children.

    That said, these days and with these professionals working the screening, unless you want to miss a flight while things are sorted out, you should always carry zee papers from zee doctors.
    Then get a special scanable tattoo with chip insert that certifies oneself as being a bonafide defective

    steveg (fed1c9)

  30. staggering 95% failure rate [of TSA screening efforts]

    This failure rate is a characteristic of the modern progressive American Utopia.

    Let me explain. American elementary teachers were asked to answer the following question, and then to explain the concept in a way that would help elementary school children learn to do similar problems:

    What is 7/4 divided by 1/2?

    43% answered the question correctly (7/2), but 94% could not provide a conceptual description of the problem. In contrast, Chinese teachers, with 9 years of public schooling, and 3 years of preparation for elementary school teaching, could, with better than 90% success rates, answer the question and provide a cogent description of the nature of the problem that would be helpful to students.

    So massive failure is becoming the common denominator that links our bureaucracy’s multifaceted assumptions of societal duties. Such incompetence would not be tolerated in a society of free men and women. We allow thugs to concentrate us in dense crowds readily attacked by terrorists simply because we hope we will be safe by submitting to this assault on our dignity. No one will point out the obvious flaw in the underlying premise.

    What can’t go on for ever … won’t.

    BobStewartatHome (404986)

  31. The media is mostly ignoring this. For shame!

    Patricia (5fc097)

  32. Interesting how they call it a “scuffle.” UNWARRANTED, BRUTAL ASSAULT is what happened. I see police using excessive force regularly against people who are not violent and not resisting.

    I do hope someone is held accountable for this brutality but I am not holding my breath.

    WarEagle82 (5bf75f)

  33. Our Homeland Defense Agencies won’t do anything when Nadal Hassan or Omar Mir Seddique Mateen is in contact with terrorists or talking crazy to colleagues. But when a half-blind, half-deaf teenage girl with a brain tumor has difficulty understanding what TSA is asking her to do while standing in line at the airport, they send in the Army Rangers to teach her a lesson.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  34. A Microsoft VP I used to work with claimed that his blond hair, blue eyes and first class tickets meant he was always selected for extra screening, just so they could assert they were not profiling.

    Not really; the answer is simpler, especially in airports like Atlanta. It is a litle game they play called “hassle the h0nky”. They want to put some businessman in his place, and can do it legally in this manner. I have had it happen more than once in Atlanta, and I am but a business class traveler at best.

    The Gentle Grizzly (11fea2)

  35. Apropos if nothing or perhaps everything.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2qw8sgEdRw

    “shut up woman, now let me tell you why you need feminism”

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  36. https://youtu.be/cTJifjW7hFY

    Yes. I will be showing up at the comedy club with her.

    And, no.

    I won’t be shutting her up.

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  37. That young lady actually has her head on straight, Steve57. Where on earth did you run across a level headed teen?

    Rev. Hoagie® (0f4ef6)

  38. Ball room dancing, hoagie.

    No sh*5.

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  39. They told me I didn’t need a partner. And, holy *&^% were they right.

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  40. I find it real hard to believe that anyone flies voluntarily these days.If you don’t have to fly for your job,why give the TSA moron class any more victims?They are causing injury to innocent travelers more often than the ‘terrorists’ they are supposed to be(rather unsuccessfully)watching for.

    carmichael folderole (1888fd)

  41. it’s so hard not to fly cause of everything is so spread out Mr. folderole

    plus i don’t got no car

    plus it’s a good way to pump up your carbon footprint

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  42. Also mr. feats, I like girls.

    You left that part out. With the spring rolls.

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  43. I find it real hard to believe that anyone flies voluntarily these days.If you don’t have to fly for your job…

    carmichael folderole (1888fd) — 7/2/2016 @ 8:03 am

    So, you’ve never waited tables, worked retail, or served in the Vatican guard?

    That’s what you are saying when you express what to you is unimaginable.

    You may be a fine person in all other respects but this is what you want to say now. Correct?

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  44. @41 my bad. I misread it to mean that because of work just about everyone flies.

    Again, my bad.

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  45. girls and spring rolls is the exact opposite of summer bummer

    especially if the sauce has a lil zing to it

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  46. I was subjected to the full grope examination once when gold threads in my sweater set off the xray thing. They said, yeah, it’s just the metallic threads, but we gotta do it. I made them do it in public!

    Meanwhile, the lady in a hijab behind me, even with the sequins on her hijab, got a full pass.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  47. My son has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and every month we fly to UC-Davis in Sacramento for an experimental drug treatment and exam. We did that yesterday. Not for the first time, they took my wheelchair kid away for special screening. And they held on to my cell phone at security so I couldn’t record the inspection. Once the inspection was done, whoa, here’s your cell phone, sir. Next time we’re dressing as blue-eyed Muslims.

    Tragic Christian (813e3a)

  48. TSA tweets:

    Reports on the unfortunate situation in Memphis are inaccurate. Police responded when the passenger refused screening or to leave.

    Unfortunate situation?? Really??

    If they are inaccurate, correct. Did passenger refuse to be screened or leave because her mother was prevented from going to her as the report states that she was:

    Cohen told us she tried to tell TSA agents her daughter is partially deaf, blind in one eye, paralyzed, and easily confused, but said she was kept at a distance by police.

    So the police were already there, presumably called by the screeners, and mom was restrained and unable to attend to the already confused and disoriented girl? How did that justify her end up knocked to the ground, bloodied and bruised?

    Dana (995455)

  49. You know what’s a really unfortunate situation? That Hannah Cohen couldn’t possibly have been President Obama’s daughter.

    Dana (995455)

  50. ABC News is reporting this:

    TSA spokesman Mark Howell and Jerry Brandon, chief of public safety of the Memphis International Airport Police Department, said they could not comment on pending litigation.

    “Anybody can file anything, and we don’t comment on active litigation,” Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority president and CEO Scott Brockman told The Commercial Appeal newspaper. “Clearly there are additional facts in this matter, and we won’t comment until we address the litigation.”

    Dana (995455)

  51. I once made it through TSA TWICE with an 8″ folding knife in my laptop case that my son had put there six weeks prior. I discovered the knife at a layover on the way home. I stopped at the TSA screening station to let them know what had transpired. The supervisor told me that knives weren’t allowed on planes. No shit. I told her that the had made in through TSA TWICE and she repeated her assertion that I shouldn’t have brought the knife through security. I just shook my head and went about my business.

    FLBuckeye (798bf2)

  52. When asked about this shameful atrocity during an appearance before a committee of the Senate, Secretary Jar-Jar denied any knowledge of the incident.

    askeptic (bfa00e)

  53. I saw commentary somewhere after the attack in Turkey in regards to what Israel does (never been there).
    Pointing out that unfettered access to massive crowding has already set up the making of a mass killing, and surveillance for suspicious characteristics at the entry point to the airport, etc. is what works.
    But not in the USA, where we have to put up with nonsense. Almost missed a plane once because of the bulge in my pants pocket from a handkerchief, after my running daughter and wife had already gone through.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  54. Here is lawsuit filed on behalf of Hannah and Shirley Cohen.

    Dana (995455)

  55. If she had been really attractive, she wouldn’t have been beaten, just molested.

    Nick M. (63e1a7)


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