Posted on 04/22/2008 9:51:29 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
A 74-year-old grandmother spent the night in jail after she refused security officers' efforts to check her at Palm Beach International Airport and then shoved a deputy, authorities said Thursday.
Elena Reichman, a Holocaust survivor who lives west of Boca Raton, is charged with felony battery on a law enforcement officer. She was released from jail after posting a $3,000 bond at 5 a.m. Thursday. It was her first arrest, state records show.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
Think she’d have emptied her pockets if she was boarding an El-Al flight?
I guess she had some experience with nazis and wasn’t about to cooperate with modern nazis.
Oh, please. Anyone else you care to add to the “do not search” list? We know the terrorists use women and babies.
If you set off the metal detector, you have to empty your pockets. This isn’t rocket science.
The TSA wimp must still be in rehab over being refused if a uniformed deputy takes things this far.
Felony battery charge for a push? Why? Because a cop got his feelings in a snit because an old lady stood up for herself and wasn’t intimidated (like she was supposed to be) by the power of the gubbmit?
Look for charge to be dropped entirely.
Let someone blow up an airplane and people will be pounding on the TSA for being slackards.
When the wolves are gone, the sheep complain about the sheepdogs.
>>If you set off the metal detector, you have to empty your pockets. This isn’t rocket science.<<
The voice of reason, always. Thank you, Dead.
If Granny set off alarms before a flight that my kids were joining her on, and they let her through, we would skip the flight.
Period.
>>Let someone blow up an airplane and people will be pounding on the TSA for being slackards.<<
Amen!
Bet she wouldn’t have pulled this in Israel.
Tough luck grandma! Obey the rules next time. I wouldn’t get on that flight if they had let her through without searching. I guess she thinks once you reach a certain age the laws don’t apply to you.
re: “Anyone else you care to add to the “do not search” list?”:
Yes, pretty much everyone should be added to the “do not search” list. If searches really kept us safer, then there might be a pretty strong argument to be made that more people should be searched. However, given how easy it would be for anyone to circumvent the searches (I’m not going to provide my own ideas, but there are documented stories of people accidentally going through security with guns, and of inspectors intentionally going through security with fake bombs), the searches appear to be only for show.
I’m not interested in being part of this show. I think the TSA has been more than adequately documented to have allowed dangerous weapons through it’s lines. Further, the TSA has interfered with the only actions that might reasonably be expected to be useful against hijacking: arming pilots and instituting a culture of awareness and self-protection among the flying public.
So, in short, I think everyone should be exempt from the pointless TSA searches. Note the word “pointless” in the previous sentence. I’m not arguing that people with large, bulky items, large enough to conceal a useful bomb, should not be searched. However, modern chemistry does not, at present, allow plane-killing weapons to be secreted in a pocket. The story was about a woman who had metal in her pockets. Even if the metal had been shaped into a gun, it would not have been enough to bring down a plane. Even if the woman had a gun, and was a terrorist, it’s only because the TSA / airline security has physically and morally disarmed the law abiding passengers and crew that the woman in question would be more dangerous aboard a plane than in a city park.
Why is it important that she is a holocaust survivor?
Absolutely.
Glad you’re not running the show.
The TSA is so useless. I guess they provide an illusion of security. They’re spot-check record isn’t so hot either. Guess they gotta take it out gradnma with the felony charge.
“Yes, pretty much everyone should be added to the “do not search” list.”
Amen to that. It’s insanity, it’s expensive, and it’s ineffective.
You mean like the box-cutters used on all four flights on 9/11?
}:-)4
I hate what’s happened to flying. How do they find so many angry people to be TSA agents?
I will not fly again, unless there is no other option. If I have to go somewhere within 500-600 miles from me, I’m driving.
Aren’t all Jews who lived after 1945 Holocaust survivor’s???
For what is essentially a trivial transgression.
I'm not sure if she would qualify as the oldest suspected terrorist in US history.
They can use all the box cutters they want to try to breach the cabin. Today, the cabin is bullet proof and it’s locked securely.
More over, pilots are trained to either go vertical, dive, or roll to upend the hijackers. Today, also, the entire plane would descend on them like flies. Planes are also installed with cabin cameras so that the pilots can see what’s going on back there.
Any touching of a state or federal guy with a badge is charged with felony battery on a law enforcement officer.
That said, I hope the prosecutor reduces it to something minor as we should cut cranky old ladies some slack (old guys too) as long as it wasn’t a punch or sharp elbow to cause real pain. With TSA, they pretend to care and search us and we pretend to take the abuse quietly.
re: You mean like the box-cutters used on all four flights on 9/11?
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. The box cutters didn’t bring the planes down. It was the moral culture of passivity and obedience to authority (even the illegitimate authority of some maniacs with knives), and the physical disarming of the law-abiding, that not only brought the planes down, but allowed three of the planes to be used as effective weapons. The TSA is doing the best it can to maintain that moral culture of passivity and obedience, and the physical absence of weapons in the hands of the law-abiding. The overblown criminal charges and pointless searches are part of the process. The TSA is not making us safer, but less safe, in my opinion. Just imagine yourself in the middle of a terrorist attack, and ask yourself: is there anything the TSA has done which makes you more likely to survive that attack?
Hate to break this to you, Skippy, but we all get there eventually.
It's called the "nothing left to lose" realization.
I am having humongous amounts of fun with my two sons, pointing out the ovbious...
Searches seem to work pretty well for El Al. If there’s a problem with our searches it’s how few happen, how unthorough they are, and how little training the searchers have.
That's almost irrelevant. The main point is that the original crime could only occur once.
Today's passengers, out of altruism, or merely being pissed off, would never succumb to the "box cutter" threat. Americans, certainly, and I would hope normal people worldwide.
Similar to suicide bombers except....well, 72 virgins and all that.
That, in my opinion, is an interesting observation. Again, I refer to the word “pointless” in my complaint about “pointless searches.” From what I understand (never having flown on El Al) the El Al security procedures are not pointless. The El al security procedures are real: they are really set up to ensure that dangerous people and things really don’t get on the plane. I’m pretty sure that we can’t replicate El Al’s security procedures in the USA, but that doesn’t mean I don’t give El Al credit for doing it on El Al flights. It also doesn’t mean that I am not open to the argument that US security procedures should similarly be arranged to actually maintain security.
The point is that the TSA security procedures are not actually set up to actually ensure that dangerous people and things don’t get on the plane. The TSA procedures are not really security procedures, but theater. An expensive, time-consuming, demoralizing (and therefore dangerous) theather at that. I am NOT arguing against security; I don’t want to die any more than the next guy. I am arguing against the TSA, which, as best I can tell, reduces the level of actual security.
Because it makes the TSA, Bush, the GOP, Neo-cons look like Israel-hating, anti-semitical Nazis.
But part of the problem with going El Al in America is that any time there’s even the slightest amount of security added that’s a vast hue and cry from the people.
You might not think you’re arguing against security, but the reality is you are. Any time people start complaining about the security measures that just proves to the ones in charge that the regular people don’t actually want security. We get this lack of security theater exactly because they know the people wouldn’t tolerate real security. The American people simply wouldn’t tolerate checking in their bags the day before and all going through pretty solid searches, and the complaints from people like you prove that.
When push comes to shove all the American people want out of security is that it be there to complain about. They want to complain about how it inconveniences them and when something bad happens they want to complain about how there wasn’t enough. We’ve got what we’ve got because that’s actually what we want.
She wouldn’t have been asked to empty her pockets before boarding an El-Al flight. Israeli security understands the importance of profiling potential terrorists.
I both agree and disagree with you. I think you are absoutely correct when you imply that we won’t be able to be “going El Al in America.” The El Al solution simply won’t work here.
However, I (of course) disagree with the idea that I am arguing against security. The security theater we have doesn’t help. Further, the security theater we have actually gets us further away from security procedures that might actually work in the USA, namely physically and morally encouraging more self reliance. That, in addition to the cost and aggravation, is why I believe the TSA should be closed.
The TSA is what we want?!?
Ye cats!
I don’t think for one minute that the TSA is there for any other reason than to be the “Harrumpf! Harrumpf! We’re doing our phoney-baloney jobs!” statement from the Transportation Department. As an organization, it has been shown to be clumsy, ineffective, expensive and prone to mission creep. In short, just another bureaucracy.
Effective security need not be quite as drastic as El Al, but simply smart and not driven primarily by P.C. The message delivered by the TSA is that, “You are ALL terrorists until we deem otherwise.” We couldn’t possibly single people out based upon risk factors or individual behavior, or instruct passengers how to stomp and incapacitate individuals who try to take over aircraft.
Remember, the TSA was a bureaucratic organization created and staffed by Norman Mineta. It was designed to fail from the beginning. If Bush had any demonstrable brains he would disband it.
No.
This really should be obvious and I can't believe I'm going to have to explain this...
The Holocaust took place in Europe. Jews who lived in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Brooklyn or anywhere else outside of the affected areas are not considered Holocaust survivors.
i suspect that she was of such a temperament she would do it at any checkpoint..
How can you commit ‘felony battery’ as a 74 year old Jewish woman??
What kind of TSA employees do we have who can suffer ‘felony battery’ at the hands of somebody that old and frail? Seriously. No wonder TSA is the agency with the least ‘satisfied’ employees. We hire the least qualified and most entitlement seeking people possible.
I don’t care how old she is or what she survived. If they tell you to empty your pockets either do it or don’t fly. IMO, you don’t have a “right” to fly. I suspect she just one of the nasty people I see everyday that believe they have the right to do whatever they want. I, for one, am tired of it.
I’m sorry but I know a lot of 70 something Jewish women and they are neither old nor frail.
Getting rid of the TSA isn’t going to make it so we allow armed civilians no commercial flights. In many ways that’s actually an entirely separate fight being fought in arenas like Florida’s armed at work law, and some recent drives to arm campuses.
In effect any complaint about TSA being annoying, over stepping their bounds, or just generally being unpleasant winds up arguing against security. Because it’s exactly those kinds of complaints that keep us from even contemplating El Al security.
And exactly what is TSA’s phoney-baloney job? They exist entirely to be complained about, and to be disbanded and replaced if there ever is another commercial flight based terrorist attack.
Actually El Al’s message is exactly that, El Al treat every passenger and everybody that arrives at the airport with a passenger as a terrorist until their security measures prove otherwise. That is the basis to any kind of effective security, if you think everybody is a bad guy you never get surprised by the bad guy.
Bush has more brains than you think. Every single time to complain about TSA you are doing EXACTLY why TSA was formed.
Really...suppose it had been shaped like a box cutter?
I don’t know whether we should arm all pilots or disband the TSA but what I do know is if someone doesn’t like the rules as they currently stand then don’t fly. Certainly age is absolutely no excuse for bad behavior.
Pull out some box-cutters these days and half the passengers would grab the seat cushion they were sitting on and attack you no matter what you promised was about to happen.
Prior to 911 hijackers took command and had the plane flown to a foreign airport. It was the suicidal terrorists who changed the norm. I’m kinda glad they did in a way because now the passengers won’t take orders from anyone but the aircrew and even then things had better not get too far out of line.
Never assume that age will make you frail. The saying below could easily apply to an elderly woman.
“Don’t pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he’ll just kill you. ->John Steinbeck
re: “Getting rid of the TSA isn’t going to make it so we allow armed civilians no commercial flights.”:
The TSA is exactly one of the major reasons we have almost no armed cockpit crews. Getting rid of the TSA, and it’s associated rules, would probably result in armed pilots in short order.
We are, it's just that some of us are a little more equal than the others.
Semper Fi
An old Man
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