Why Isn't This TSA Agent Who Groped a 10-Year-Old Being Charged with Sexual Battery?

Little girl gets patdown for accidentally smuggling a juice box past airport security.

Kevin Payne

Vendela Payne, a 10-year-old from San Diego, California, inadvertently smuggled a Capri sun juice box into her luggage at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The TSA caught her, which triggered a mandatory pat down. Vendela's father, Kevin Payne, recorded the incident: watch it here.

This was no perfunctory pat down. Over the course of two full minutes, a female TSA agent touched nearly every inch of Vendela's body. She firmly ran her hands over the girl's arms, legs, chest, back, and waistline. When the agent tugged up on Vendela's shirt—seemingly in order to untuck and get under it—the girl instinctively pulled it back down.

Vendela wasn't wearing baggy clothes, and a much less intrusive pat down would have been sufficient to prove she wasn't carrying more contraband. It's hard not to see the TSA's literal heavy-handedness as some kind of punishment for the elder Payne, who was clearly incensed that his daughter had to be touched at all.

Here's a bit of irony for you. Earlier today, I wrote about East Carolina University's revised policy on sexual harassment, which stipulates that sexual battery is defined as "intentional or attempted sexual touching of another person's clothed or unclothed body… by another with any part of the body or any object in a sexual manner without their consent."

I'm not a big fan of overly broad consent policies, but it seems to me the Raleigh airport would be a safer place for young girls if it borrowed ECU's sexual battery definition. Why does the TSA routinely get away with abusive, wholly unnecessary behavior that would land anyone else on the sex offender registry?

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Why aren't cops charged for speeding? It's a two-tier system.

[Raven Nation]

Why does the TSA routinely get away with abusive, wholly unnecessary behavior that would land anyone else on the sex offender registry?

Sheesh Robby, not a hard question: FYTW.

[buybuydandavis]

Winner.

BFYTW is always the right answer in cases like these.

[croaker]

Texas tried to reign in these perverts, until TSA threatened to close every airport in the state. Then they folded like a cheap suit.

[Citizen X]

Because turrism! Keeping Our Chirren Safe! We had to molest the girl in order to save her! Top Men!

[Hugh Akston]

You have to fireboard those motherjammers

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Vendela Payne, a 10-year-old from San Diego, California, inadvertently smuggled a Capri sun juice box

Is this Elizabeth Nolan Brown's real name?

[SugarFree]

She consents to the search by flying. If she didn't want to be groped then she should haved walked to whereever they felt it was so important to go.

[Jerryskids]

Exactly. You have no right to criticize the TSA, or any other government agency for that matter, since your living here is implied consent to whatever they may decide to do. If you don't like it, move to Somalia ya freak. Jeez, people complaining about the TSA groping little children - so you think allowing terrorists with nukes aboard aircraft is perfectly okay?

[Bill Dalasio]

If you don't like it, move to Somalia ya freak.

You know, I do wonder how they'd react if this country ever started experiencing a brain drain. How many generations do you think we are away from them building walls to keep us in?

[Citizen X]

Two articles down on the Hit'n'Run main page has your answer, homes.

[R C Dean]

How many generations do you think we are away from them building walls to keep us in?

They don't need to, since they claim universal jurisdiction. You literally cannot escape. Just ask all the folks who had their overseas accounts closed, all the expats who have to pay taxes, etc., and the ridiculous barriers and expense around surrendering citizenship.

[FUNKT THE NEWS]

TSA has a recent history of major groping. Evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDe_gk_f6oY

[Heroic Mulatto]

Listen, if it takes the public digital sodomization of a 10-year-old girl to make America safe from the Brown Horde, and drugs, then that's what it takes.

[Just say Nikki]

If the TSA agent doesn't grope her, she's just going to get gangraped by Muslims anyway, amirite?

[SugarFree]

"Finally! A rape I can care about!"

[Citizen X]

"I'm just a TSA agent. I only know words like 'contraband'... and 'good'... and 'rape.'"

[Zombie Dog]

Contraband Banana

[Heroic Mulatto]

Preemptive rape is the only way we shall win this war.

[SugarFree]

Look, if we raped all our own women first, then it won't matter when the Islamooslums rape them. They'll just be damaged goods at that point.

[Just say Nikki]

Warty is the hero we all need right now.

[Hamster of Doom]

I dream of what I need...

[Los Doyers]

JOHNNY FOOTBALL

[Warty]

But if you try sometimes
You might find
You get what you need

[Citizen X]

But if you try sometimes
You might find
You get Warty's seed

[Heroic Mulatto]

Why aren't you making America great again?

[Citizen X]

He's only one quasi-mortal pandimensional sex adventurer, he can't bench press/fuck 'Merica back to greatness but so quickly.

[Private Chipperbot]

Was she on a flight to Europe?

[SugarFree]

Commenter Janelle Sherako wrote that she's familiar with secondary screening at airport checkpoints, having gone through it some 40 times last year while traveling for work in a knee brace.

"There is nothing out of line here," Sherako wrote. "Being a parent myself and a frequent flyer I don't see anything other than the TSA agent doing her job.

"I'm sorry your child go searched," Sherako wrote, "but I'd rather have my child searched every flight along with any other potential threat than to be on a plane and get hijacked, blown up, or (another) negative outcome."

Janelle Sherako is a good little bootlicker. Hmm... boot. What goes best with boot, Janelle? Red or white?

[Just say Nikki]

"but I'd rather have my child searched every flight along with any other potential threat than to be on a plane and get hijacked, blown up, or (another) negative outcome."

I wonder what the poor child whom this woman considers chattel thinks about it.

[Hamster of Doom]

No kidding. All those people who act as if their kids are pets, objects or mere extensions of themselves.

Logically, the obligation is one-way, and all on the parents. Fail.

[Citizen X]

So, uh, Janelle sort of seems to be implying that she thinks her kid is a terrorist. Maybe she should have tried harder?

[Just say Nikki]

You just don't understand the steps parents have to take these days to prevent future gangrapes.

[Citizen X]

I wonder if she called the cops when her kid wouldn't eat its broccoli at dinner.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I thought it was parents who just didn't understand?

[Hamster of Doom]

Her kids will grow up to snitch her out to the feds. She'll be so proud!

[SugarFree]

"I Saw Mommy Smoking Weed With Santa Claus"

[Doctor Whom]

That will be doubleplusgood.

[See Double You]

Being a parent myself and a frequent flyer I don't see anything other than the TSA agent doing her job.

When the mobster breaks kneecaps, he's just doing his job, see?

[Doctor Whom]

Befehl ist Befehl.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

"I'm sorry your child go searched," Sherako wrote, "but I'd rather have my child searched every flight along with any other potential threat than to be on a plane and get hijacked, blown up, or (another) negative outcome."

There's no response to this comment that can't be construed as racist.

[Jerryskids]

"but I'd rather have my child searched every flight along with any other potential threat than to be on a plane and get hijacked, blown up, or (another) negative outcome."

If only this child had been born 15 years earlier so they could have been searching her on 9/11, what tragedy could have been avoided. I know back in the day before the TSA when I flew I used to get blowed up at least once a month by terrorists. Thank Jeebus TSA searches have put a stop to that!

(I have to admit, I would much rather your child get searched than to get blowed up, too - but those are not mutually exclusive choices and your child getting searched has fuck-all to do with whether or not I get blowed up.)

[Heroic Mulatto]

The banality of evil.

[SugarFree]

Regional Clinical Research Associate at Advanced Clinical

Advanced Clinical? That sounds like a fake corp set up as cover by super villains in a comic book.

[Citizen X]

I don't know about "banality," that blurry headshot looks like the last image from some poor spelunker's GoPro.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Or a screencap from an amateur first-person-perspective Youporn vid.

[Citizen X]

That's almost worse.

[Loki]

I assumed that's he meant by "spelunker".

[See Double You]

Hannah Arendt was spot on, BTW.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

Why do you suppose it is that this woman has not worked anywhere for more than two years?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Might.

[Citizen X]

or (another) negative outcome

Like having to spend time at the Raleigh-Durham airport?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Janelle Sherako seems not to understand that this wasn't a safety screening.

It was a punishment for getting caught with a juice box. Period.

[Rhywun]

#sorrynotsorry

[GroundTruth]

Whatever happened to the country that bred Patrick "Give me Liberty of Give Me Death" Henry?

I'll look forward to hearing that Ms Sherako has been strapped down and force fed in a nursing home at her daughter's request 'for her own safety'. Turnabout is always fair play!

[Joe_C]

Seriously. What happened to that America?

[Warty]

"but I'd rather have my child searched every flight along with any other potential threat than to be on a plane and get hijacked, blown up, or (another) negative outcome."

False dichotomies are the best dichotomies.

[Loki]

Fuck that whiny-assed pants shitting bitch with a rusty chainsaw.

[Aloysious]

Where is Hairy Reed with his 'If you want to professionalize, you must Federalize' routine?

*google-fu's*

Sorry. Wrong clown-shoes wearing motherfucker. It was Tom Daschle: "You can't professionalize unless you federalize," agreed Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

Stossel is pretty cool.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

In a 100-0 vote, the Senate passed a security bill that would put all 28,000 screeners and other airport security personnel on the federal payroll.

This was when America was a bipartisan utopia!

[Aloysious]

There is a quote out there that sometimes get attributed to Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen and sometimes not. The quote is that there two parties in Washington ? the stupid party and the evil party. Every once in a while the stupid party and the evil party get together and do something that is both stupid and evil. In Washington, that is called bipartisanship.

My apologies for linking to Erik Erikson.

[Citizen X]

You sugarfreed the link, so no apology necessary.

Of note is that that Stupid Party and the Evil Party switch every few years - and the Stupid Party is always a little bit evil, and the Evil Party is always a little bit stupid.

[Aloysious]

http://www.redstate.com/diary/.....-together/

nuts.

[Rhywun]

If you want to professionalize, you must Federalize

That should up for derp-of-the-century.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

OBEY

Also, paging Old Man with Candy. TSA is hiring.

[See Double You]

That girl should be happy the TSA didn't gun her down. But if it had saved just one life me from feeling scared, I'd have been OK with it.

[sarcasmic]

This is why I will not fly. If someone tried to do that to my kid I'd wind of dead or in prison.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

She was asking for it. What with her juice box and all.

[SugarFree]

Government is just the children we touch together.

[FUNKT THE NEWS]

This video shows TSA screeners being far more gropey and none of them were charged with anything:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDe_gk_f6oY

So no, sadly, she won't be.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Aight...I'd bump this shit in my ride.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

For anyone who clicked the link above:

Antidote

[Heroic Mulatto]

I'd bump that shit too!

[Citizen X]

It's bumped shit all the way down.

[Bramblyspam]

In fairness, a perfunctory patdown is just security theater. If you're going to pat down at all, you should do it thoroughly enough to detect underwear bombers and the like.

If that makes everybody mad enough to abolish the TSA, I'm okay with that. 😉

[R C Dean]

Cavity searches FTW!

[See Double You]

OT: Poe Dameron could be one of us.

[spqr2008]

So, when the Norks and Iranians combine to build Starkiller base, we'll be saved!

[Inigo Montoya, Micro-Aggressor]

Let's give the TSA groper a break! Any 10-year-old who was trying to board with a contraband overly-sugary juice box could well be concealing illicit and equally fattening Tootsie Rolls or Necco wafers in various places! At least someone in government other than Michelle O. is finally stepping up to DO SOMETHING to combat childhood obesity.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Don't look now, DOW down to 2014 levels. Where shrike at?

Also, while the fed "raised" interest rates between 25 and 50 basis points, have the interest rates actually hit that target, now that the fed can no longer raise interest rates by raising interest rates?

[Lee G]

Where shrike at?

Hopefully answering his margin calls

[Citizen X]

He gets pretty sleepy after he takes his meds, on the rare occasions when he remembers to do so.

[Loki]

Where shrike at?

Ironically (given the subject of this post), his mom just put him down for his nap after his afternoon juicebox.

[Private Chipperbot]

I don't get this. I fly about every two weeks for work and I leave water bottles in my carry on all the time. They stop pull it out and send me along. I've never been groped, and believe me, I'm good enough looking for any team to want a grab.

[Zeb]

Yeah, isn't there usually a big bin full of bottles that they pull out of people's bags?

[ant1sthenes]

Rape is the privilege of the ruling classes, though they dole it out to their clients, champions, and enforcers as needed to procure support. See also: Clinton, Cosby, cops, and Cologne.

[Pope Jimbo]

I always opt out of the nudie scanner. In the many pat downs I have had only once has a TSA agent ever checked the bottom of my feet. The one time the groper did it was because he was pissed at my running commentary during the screening and he wanted to keep me there as long as he could.

I noticed in this video too that they didn't check the bottom of the little girl's feet. Fuck how hard would it be to tape some contraband to the bottom of your foot and get through security?

[Pope Jimbo]

I should point out that you can use a lot of tape. I once got groped after I had rolled my ankle in a b-ball game and had a giant gob of k-tape trying to keep it stabilized and the screener couldn't have cared less that one foot was covered with tape.

[Spoonman.]

I always opt out too except for once when we were in a hurry. You could fit various things between your scrotum and your thigh and they'd never notice.

They've never checked the bottom of my feet, either. Never thought of it before.

[The Late P Brooks]

per the Constitutional-Scholar-in-Chief:

That's jut the cost of doing business as a civilized society.

What sort of nihilist savages would want little girls to carry juice boxes onto airplanes unmolested?

[Lee G]

You forgot to shed a tear

[Zeb]

I'm not convinced that "sexual touching" is an appropriate way to describe security pat downs. This certainly went too far and airport security has way too much arbitrary power to do what they want to people.
But I don't care for the presumption that touching of certain body parts is necessarily sexual in nature. Does intent count for nothing? Are, say, gynecologists in the business of sexual touching? I'd think that would be an odd way to characterize what they do.
I get that it's satisfying to turn the tables like this, but I'd rather treat everyone, even TSA assholes, in a reasonable and measured way. The problem is the stupid rules and overbroad powers.

[Private Chipperbot]

Are, say, gynecologists in the business of sexual touching? I'd think that would be an odd way to characterize what they do.

Maybe?

[R C Dean]

I'm not convinced that "sexual touching" is an appropriate way to describe security pat downs.

Assault would be better, I think, but we know that some people don't think an assault has been occurred unless there is bloodshed . . . .

Really, all we want here is a single standard for everyone. Right now, if you go up to a 10 year old girl you've never met and touch nearly every inch of her body, firmly running your hands over the girl's arms, legs, chest, back, and waistline, and tug tug up her shirt, I guarantee you will be arrested for sexual assault.

As for gynecologists, they get affirmative written consent before they lay a finger on you.

[Rt. Hon. Judge Woodrow Chipper]

That's because gynecologists aren't vetted by the feds.

[Zeb]

The consent thing is definitely the big issue. But again, that makes is assault, not sexual assault. If you are going to pat someone down, it's kind of pointless if you avoid certain areas of their body. The problem isn't the touching of special areas. The problem is with that level of invasive search without a specific suspicion. That and assholes who have nothing going for them but the power to arbitrarily do stuff like this.

[R C Dean]

But again, that makes is assault, not sexual assault

I agree that's how it should work, theoretically.

However, as noted above, if you did what this jumped-up mall cop did, you'd be charged with sexual assault. To avoid a double standard, if its sexual assault for you to do it, its sexual assault if they do it.

[Mr Drew]

So...WTF?

This TSA agent is groping his little girl and this guy reacts by videoing it?

I'm near terrified every time I fly with my little one because I would absolutely destroy anyone who tried to touch her like that or take her out of my sight.

I'm not a guy who sees a pedophile under every rock but I see jobs like this as the child molester promised land.

I don't mean to criticize the dad too hard because it's hard to break away from the social pressure of the moment and cause the scene, but this would totally do it for me, let the bodies fall where they may.

The "ten in the pen" would be a real downside but it's still the right thing to do. Besides, my Reason homies would hopefully have a jury nullification-fest outside the courthouse for me. (Irish whiskey and rare red meat to be provided by my attorney)

[Zeb]

I'm not a parent, so I can't say what I'd do. But I would strongly disagree that getting physical with the TSA person would be the right thing to do. You being in prison wouldn't stop the pat down from happening and would do far more harm to your daughter than a pat down from some over-active TSA goon. Which you still wouldn't have prevented. You might be justified in some sense, but it would be the worst thing you could do for your daughter.

Does being a parent make everyone lose all reason, or only some people?

[Mr Drew]

So what you're saying is, let my daughter be groped by some random agent of the state because the long term consequences of resisting are potentially high?

And you're a...libertarian?

Would you advise your wife to go along with being raped because it was too dangerous to do otherwise?

Also, let me be clear: I wouldn't start with violence. I would start with refusal, then a demand to escalate to a supervisor, then an offer to leave the airport (while against the rules, I hear it happens sometimes), then the threat of arrest (for the agent) and threats of a lawsuit, then the threat of physical violence, then, if need be, the most sudden and brutal fulfillment of that threat that I could.

It might be that the consequences of that action would be dire. Arrest, certainly. Getting shot, possibly. Fair enough. But the notion that I should just go along with her molestation because otherwise I might get in enough trouble that that would also be a negative consequence for my little one I find disgusting and reprehensible.

And yet you question MY reasoning ability when your first thought seems to be "lick the boot hard enough and go ahead and take it in the ass and maybe they'll let you live". And you try to hide this, like so many others of a like mind, behind a smoke screen of "hey, I'm just being pragmatic".

[Governor Squid]

I will admit that the question "How many of your bones do you suppose I could break before your fellow mall cops tased me?" springs to mind...

[Suthenboy]

That girl's father needs an ass whipping.

As a young boy I witnessed a local farmer beating a young mule with a 2x4. He hit the mule repeatedly so hard that I thought the board would break. The mule was screaming bloody murder, and I thought the guy was going to kill the animal. I was so incensed that I grabbed up a board myself and began approaching the farmer with the intention of halting the brutality. His son, a friend of mine, stopped me and explained that the mule had to learn to fear the guy so that he would be obedient.

That was forty years ago and to this day I am still feel deeply ashamed for not carrying through.

[R C Dean]

the mule had to learn to fear the guy so that he would be obedient.

"Funny, that's exactly why I'm about the shit of your father."

[Suthenboy]

I think I see what you are saying but punishing and shaming someone for inaction while their daughter is molested is a bit different from preemptively brutalizing someone for the sole purpose of instilling fear in them.

So, not exactly.

[R C Dean]

I know, I was snarking.

[Loki]

the mule had to learn to fear the guy so that he would be obedient.

Did that kid grow up to be a cop? Sounds like their reasoning too.

[Suthenboy]

As a matter of fact, yes he did.

He is a cop.

[kinnath]

People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

The average American is forever in search of the kind shepard that will lead him or her to cool water and tall grass. All the while failing to notice the shepard steals his/her fleece every year and turns quite a few sheep into shepard's pie at the same time.

[Rt. Hon. Judge Woodrow Chipper]

If only the TSA had existed sooner, then Penn State football wouldn't be tarnished.

[MikeP]

I got patted down at Raleigh-Durham the day after this girl.

It's the first time in a long time traveling with kids that I was directed to the scanner rather than the metal detector like the kids. As always, I opted for the pat down.

I will note that the pat down did indeed take longer than I'd ever experienced before at any other airport.

[Loki]

Because laws don't apply to the King's Men. Also, because FYTW, like always.

[dirt worshipper]

"We cherish our right to privacy, but we accept that you have to go through metal detectors before being allowed to board a plane. It's not because people like doing that, but we understand that is part of the price of living in a civilized society. "- PRESIDENT OBAMA

That quote & image of the child would make a nice meme...

[MikeP]

Yes, we accept that you have to go through metal detectors before being allowed to board a plane.

It's the going through full-body scanners and the pat downs due to happening to be carrying an innocuous liquid that are beyond the price of living in a civilized society.

[dirt worshipper]

Except black-bar her face....

[kV]

Jesus Christ, that's more than I got from my wife on my last birthday.

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Why? Because they're the government, and they're here to protect us from evil people who wish to do us harm......
or something.

[RaleighScott]

Because the Sheriff of Wake County is too busy chasing imaginary drug kingpins?

[Alan@.4]

Nothing to see here, move along, it's all for your own good.

[GamerFromJump]

Why Isn't This TSA Agent Who Groped a 10-Year-Old Being smashed into a red smear with sledgehammers?

FIFY.