Harassing The Elderly In Our Police State

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Harassing The Elderly In Our Police State

 

 

 

 

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Harassing The Elderly In Our Police State

Submitted by rob on Sat, 2006-04-01 06:27.

 

Click here to view a larger image.

Bogart Family ©

 

Bernice " Bea " Bogart, 83, is shown at her youngest daughter's

Tennessee home Wednesday night. Bogart will turn 84 next week.

 

By Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

March 31, 2006

 

Sally Moon had to cool off for the better part of this week before she

could see straight enough to write a complaint about a security

agent's treatment of her elderly mother at Denver International Airport.

 

At first, she couldn't settle on the right words to use. " Horrific, "

" mind-boggling " and " outrageous " were a few that came to mind.

 

Anyone could see that Bernice " Bea " Bogart, 83, was a fragile woman,

Moon said. Bogart had breast cancer surgery in 1997, a total hip

replacement after a fall in 1999, a major stroke in 2004 that caused

dementia, and is hard of hearing.

 

So when Bogart, who was in a wheelchair, was required by airport

security on Saturday to stand against doctor's orders and undergo a

rigorous screening by a testy female screener, Moon got furious.

 

" I don't know if she thought my mom had a bomb in her Depends or

what, " Moon said.

 

A Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said Thursday

that a high level of professionalism and courtesy is expected from its

screeners and Moon's complaint is being looked into.

 

But Moon doubts anyone will be held accountable.

 

This week, she sat at her computer in Colorado Springs and e-mailed

the TSA's Office of Civil Rights.

 

" Although I imagine this complaint will go straight to the trash and

the agent responsible will face no consequences and receive no

reprimand, I could not sleep until I at least voiced my outrage, " she

began.

 

Moon said that at about 6 p.m. Saturday, she and her sister were

walking alongside their mother, who was in a wheelchair being pushed

by a Frontier Airlines employee to a special screening area at the

head of DIA's Concourse A.

 

Just before reaching security, Moon's sister, who did not have gate

clearance, was asked to sit in a chair away from the screening area

while Moon and their mother proceeded.

 

Bogart was holding an orthopedic card saying that she had a metal

plate in her hip.

 

Having been assured that Frontier and the TSA staff would not require

Bogart to leave her wheelchair, Moon turned her back to put her

mother's bags through the X-ray screener.

 

Moon said she was horrified when she turned around moments later to

discover that her mother had been selected for additional screening

and was out of her wheelchair and hobbling through a large glass-

walled corridor.

 

" There were no grab bars, " Moon said. " What I could see really was her

fingers trying to hang onto a little ledge. "

 

Fearing another hip-shattering fall, Moon instinctively reached out

for her mother.

 

" Don't touch her! " Moon says the screener barked.

 

As the elderly woman shuffled along, Moon said she continued to tell

the screener that her mother was not to stand without her four-

wheeled walker.

 

" You'd better change your attitude, " Moon recalls the screener saying.

" Or do you want me to make it so you don't fly today? "

 

The screener allowed Bogart to sit down for a moment and then

instructed her to stand up and lift her arms, Moon said. Bogart could

barely raise her arms due to the breast cancer surgery and so the

screener lifted them higher herself, Moon said.

 

Infuriated, Moon protested and said she was told to sit across the

room " or else. "

 

" I know she prolonged her search because she was mad at me, " Moon said.

 

Bogart had been nervous about flying alone for the first time since

her husband's death last year. She sat back down in the wheelchair

after the screening in shocked silence, her daughter said.

 

Two hours later, Bogart was in the air, en route to Nashville, Tenn.,

to visit her youngest daughter for a month. Moon marched back to

security to give management a piece of her mind.

 

She demanded the name of the young screener in her mid-to-late 20s

with darkish hair pulled back in a bun.

 

A TSA manager refused to give her the screener's name, Moon said, and

suggested she file a general complaint.

 

Several days later, Moon did just that.

 

" If you've read this far, I'm surprised, " she wrote in closing. " But

if you have, you can now toss this letter, send me one of those form

letters indicating you take these kinds of complaints 'very seriously'

and are going to investigate the matter, blah blah blah, and get back

to more important activities. "

 

Moon can expect a response from the TSA's Office of Civil Rights,

Denver TSA spokeswoman Carrie Harmon said.

 

" When we receive complaints, we take them very seriously, we

investigate them and we address any personnel issues as appropriate, "

Harmon said.

 

Reached at her youngest daughter's home in Nashville on Thursday,

Bogart said she didn't want to get anyone in trouble and emphasized

" they were all kind except for that one girl. I thought she was a

little harsh. "

 

" I thought it was a little much, " she added. " She wouldn't let my

daughter help me. And I have a hard time standing very long at a time

at all. "

 

DIA spokesman Chuck Cannon expressed surprise at Bogart's tale, but

said ultimately the airport has no authority to regulate the TSA,

which is a federal agency.

 

" I honestly don't know why they would have made a woman in that

condition get up and walk through secondary screening, " he said. " I'm

sure it's all a misunderstanding, but we hate for those things to

happen and we wish they wouldn't happen. "

 

bargec or 303-892-5059

 

Copyright 2006, Rocky Mountain News. .

 

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