This is enough to make your blood boil.
The Philadelphia Enquirer: Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday.
The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk.
Mid-morning on March 19, his parents wheeled his stroller to the TSA security point, a couple of hours before their Southwest Airlines flight was to depart.
The boy’s father broke down the stroller and put it on the conveyor belt as Leona Thomas walked Ryan through the metal detector.
The alarm went off.
The screener told them to take off the boy’s braces.
The Thomases were dumbfounded. “I told them he can’t walk without them on his own,” Bob Thomas said.
“He said, ‘He’ll need to take them off.’ ”
Ryan’s mother offered to walk him through the detector after they removed the braces, which are custom-made of metal and hardened plastic.
No, the screener replied. The boy had to walk on his own.
The family managed to make it through, thankfully. Later they were told the screener didn’t follow procedures. All American Blogger says the screener doesn’t need retraining, he needs to be fired. I couldn’t agree more.
Find out what others are saying at memeorandum.
It’a not hard to spot sadism, is it? The guy ought to be fired and the parents ought to go the old civil suit route.
I don’t believe in litigation as a general rule,but sometimes…
Probably as fed employees these folks are immune from any consequences,but again, playing the system, contacting their Congressional rep, their Senators, etc., needs to keep the pressure on. I’ll bet there are disabled children’s advocacy groups who could do an effective job here.
Definitely not just this one family on its own. It has to be a real community effort. I hope one of the parties concerned gets the Thomas More Center for some legal help.
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