A TSA agent at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport apparently found a 3-year-old boy in a wheelchair and leg cast threatening, as a video shows the agent performing an extensive pat down of the terrified toddler, and even taking swabs of his leg cast.
The boy, whose father is Chicago radio personality Matt DuBiel, was on his way to a Disney vacation with his parents, two siblings, and two grandparents when the incident took place. The video shows the boy confused, and holding back tears, asking for his mommy as the TSA agent tries to calm him down. The agent then performs a pat down, and takes swabs of the boy’s cast.
The whole time that he is in the screening area, no one in his family is allowed to go near him, except when his father was called over to lift the boy’s shirt. The home video looks to be shot by DuBiel.
In the background, you can even see a senior citizen with a cane being escorted into the screening area for the same treatment. Now, I am all for security in airports, and not letting anything like 9/11 happen in the future, however this video screams of going too far.
Unless his family stuck a weapon down his cast while he wasn’t looking (and let’s face it, the boy would give it away almost immediately by complaining that it was too tight or that the object was itchy), this little boy’s treatment by the TSA agent was not necessary.
Matt Dubiel said of his son’s pat down, which took place in 2010, but was just posted to YouTube over the weekend:
“I [recently] watched the video with my 10-year-old and my heart start beating real fast…I started getting angry, a rash of emotions and then I had to explain to my 10-year-old what was happening and why I allowed it to happen.”
He isn’t the first child to go through an intensive pat down at the hands of the TSA. A video posted on YouTube last April shows 6-year-old Anna Drexel’s reaction to a TSA agent touching her. AOL even wrote a story about a baby being patted down at the Kansas City Airport.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced in September that children who are under 12 no longer have to remove their shoes at checkpoints. Apparently, this does not keep them from other intrusive treatment by the TSA.
Do you think that the boy’s father, Matt Dubiel, is making too much of a routine pat-down, or is the TSA going too far?
Check out the home video below of the pat-down:
[iframe src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/hvFSK1NdXog” width=”420? height=”315?]