| The worst example of airport security that I have ever seen was when I was returning from San Francisco not long after 9/11.
We were all in a long queue to get through security and were only being let through to the luggage scanners one at a time, then having to remove shoes, belts and such before going through the body scanner.
About 4 people in front of me there was a guy in a wheelchair and he was wheeled forward for the same procedure. Now I know that terrorists could easily pose as invalids but it was quite clear that this guy was genuinely disabled to all but the most brainless muppet. However, they would not let the guy go through the body scanner in his chair - again I can see why. However, they would not let his carer assist him either, even though they volunteered to go through the scanner seperately again. So they made this poor guy try and stand and take a few faltering steps through the scanner. As he stood up he lost his balance and tipped forward towards a dumbassed security guard who, over reacted thinking that the guy was taking a lunge at him instead of simply falling over. He immediately went into attack mode and the next thing you knew he had pinned this guy to the floor with his arm locked up around his back while all his over excited cretin buddies ran around with their guns pulled and pointed at the guy screaming the usual cliches 'like FREEZE Motherf....".
Meanwhile the disabled guy was still pinned to the ground by a 250 pound gorilla with blood trickling from a split lip from where he'd hit the floor.
Me and all the other passengers were in stunned silence for a second or two, then uproar broke out as we all realised what was going on and started to shout at the security guards to leave the poor guy alone. It worked, they picked him up and the last I saw there was some sort of first aider patching up his cut lip.
The security guards though were having none of being shouted at by the public, just gave them an excuse to go into an even greater adrenalin fuelled macho swagger and make it extra difficult to get through security.
Hmmm...the land of the free |