Denver, CO – Two TSA screeners are accused of setting up travelers to be fondled and groped as they passed through security at Denver International Airport.
A TSA worker blew the whistle on the checkpoint groping last November, saying that a male colleague told her he ‘gropes’ male passengers coming through screening. According to a Denver police report obtained by CBS4, the male worker told his colleague ‘When a male he finds attractive comes to be screened by the scanning machine, he will alert another TSA screener to indicate to the scanning computer that the party being screened is a female. When the screener does this, the scanning machine will indicate an anomaly in the genital area’.. which then allowed the male TSA agent to do a pat down search on the male passengers.
Three months after that tip, a TSA supervisor watched the security area to see if it was true. Its unclear why it took the TSA three months to look into the information. The investigator said he watched as a male passenger entered the scanner, and saw the male TSA agent ‘appear to give a signal to another screener’. Then says the investigator, he saw the female accomplice press a button indicating the passenger was a female. ‘The scanner alerted to an anomaly’ and the investigator then watched the male TSA agent ‘conduct a pat down of the passenger’s front groin and buttocks area with the palm of his hands’.. contrary to TSA policy.
CBS4 reports, “TSA investigators then interviewed the female TSA employee who confessed to the fondling conspiracy saying she had done it at least ten times.”
Both TSA agents were fired. Security cameras captured the March incident but that video has not been released, and the TSA says it has not been able to identify the male passenger, who was flying on Southwest Airlines. Denver police investigated this as a possible sex assault, but prosecutors say with no victim, there’s no criminal case.
The TSA released a statement saying:
These alleged acts are egregious and intolerable.
All allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated by the agency. And when substantiated, employees are held accountable.
