On Sunday, Jennifer Williamson and her son, flying out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, were delayed at the airport following a request by the mother to have TSA employees "screen him in other ways per TSA rules," as the child had been diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder. The wait for the request to be granted caused them to miss their flight, and resulted in some apparently unorthodox behaviour on the part of TSA employees.
In the post, which has now been viewed more than six million times, a guard can be seen spending an inordinate amount of time moving his hands around the teen's body. The boy, barefoot and clad only in shorts and a tshirt, is forced to keep his arms straight out from his torso while the older guard runs gloved fingers throughout his clothing and around his limbs.
In the video the child is clearly cooperative, and no illegal materials were found during the course of the extensive security check, according to Dallasnews.com.
"They detained Aaron for well over an hour at DFW. (And deliberately kept us from our flight… we are now on an alternate)," reads Williamson's Facebook post.
"We were treated like dogs because I requested they attempt to screen him in other ways per TSA rules. He has SPD [sensory processing disorder] 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."
Williamson added, "Somehow these power tripping TSA agents who are traumatizing children and doing whatever they feel like without any cause, need to be reined in."
TSA released a statement regarding the incident, claiming that they followed their own procedural rules to "resolve an alarm of the passenger's laptop."
