TSA agents are being criticized on social media after a video surfaced recently of agents patting down a 96-year-old wheelchair-bound woman at Washington Dulles International Airport.
In the video, which has been viewed nine million times online, the woman’s daughter Jeanne Clarkson can be heard asking TSA agents, “What the hell do you think she’s going to do? Set off a shoe bomb?”
“I was just shocked. I’ve traveled with her before, I’ve been in a wheelchair myself unable to walk through the machines and I’ve never had that kind of a pat-down ever. I was just shocked. I couldn’t believe they were doing this to my 96-year-old mother,” Jeanne Clarkson told CBS News. “It was just shock, and frustration because they would not talk to me. I felt helpless.”
Many on social media have criticized TSA for the spectacle they caused the elderly woman to go through, including raising her arms above her head while seated in her wheelchair and moving into different positions so the agent could pat her down.
Dulles Airport responded to the social media comments on the video, announcing that the airport had passed on the criticisms to TSA officials. The airport also urged social media users who commented on the video to personally contact TSA.
“Many of you have reached out to us to express concern over a video of a security screening taking place at Dulles International Airport,” Dulles posted to Facebook in May after the video was first published. “Security screening at our checkpoints is directed and conducted by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). We have shared customer comments with the TSA for their immediate review and appropriate action.”
Clarkson said that her mother will likely refrain from flying again after this incident.
“She didn’t know what to say. She does not want to fly again ever. She didn’t know what they were looking for. She was scared,” Clarkson told CBS. “She was just following directions. She said she didn’t know what to do.”
