~Taken from a news story at fluiddruid.com(net)~

On the morning of October 26th Mary and I entered Portland International Airport, en route to the Las Vegas wedding of one of my best friends. Although we live in Los Angeles, we’d been in Oregon working on a film, and up to that point had had nothing but praise to shower on the city of Portland, a refreshing change of pace from our own suffocating metropolis.

At the security checkpoint I was led aside for the "inspection" that’s all the rage at airports these days. My shoes were removed. I was told to take off my sweater, then to fold over the waistband of my pants. My baseball hat, hastily jammed on my head at 5 AM, was removed and assiduously examined ("Anything could be in here, sir," I was told, after I asked what I could hide in a baseball hat. Yeah. Anything.) Soon I was standing on one foot, my arms stretched out, the other leg sticking out in front of me àla a DUI test. I began to get pissed off, as most normal people would. My anger increased when I realized that the newly knighted federal employees weren’t just examining me, but my 7½ months pregnant wife as well. I’d originally thought that I’d simply been randomly selected for the more excessive than normal search. You know, Number 50 or whatever. Apparently not though – it was both of us. These are your new threats, America: pregnant accountants and their sleepy husbands flying to weddings.

After some more grumbling on my part they eventually finished with me and I went to retrieve our luggage from the x-ray machine. Upon returning I found my wife sitting in a chair, crying. Mary rarely cries, and certainly not in public. When I asked her what was the matter, she tried to quell her tears and sobbed, "I’m sorry...it’s...they touched my breasts...and..." That’s all I heard. I marched up to the woman who’d been examining her and shouted, "What did you do to her?" Later I found out that in addition to touching her swollen breasts – to protect the American citizenry – the employee had asked that she lift up her shirt. Not behind a screen, not off to the side – no, right there, directly in front of the hundred or so passengers standing in line. And for you women who’ve been pregnant and worn maternity pants, you know how ridiculous those things look. "I felt like a clown," my wife told me later. "On display for all these people, with the cotton panel on my pants and my stomach sticking out. When I sat down I just lost my composure and began to cry. That’s when you walked up."

Of course when I say she "told me later," it’s because she wasn’t able to tell me at the time, because as soon as I demanded to know what the federal employee had done to make her cry, I was swarmed by Portland police officers. Instantly. Three of them, cinching my arms, locking me in handcuffs, and telling me I was under arrest. Now my wife really began to cry. As they led me away and she ran alongside, I implored her to calm down, to think of the baby, promising her that everything would turn out all right. She faded into the distance and I was shoved into an elevator, a cop holding each arm. After making me face the corner, the head honcho told that I was under arrest and that I wouldn’t be flying that day – that I was in fact a "menace."

It took me a while to regain my composure. I felt like I was one of those guys in The Gulag Archipelago who, because the proceedings all seem so unreal, doesn’t fully realize that he is in fact being arrested in a public place in front of crowds of people for...for what? I didn’t know what the crime was. Didn’t matter. Once upstairs, the officers made me remove my shoes and my hat and tossed me into a cell. Yes, your airports have prison cells, just like your amusement parks, train stations, universities, and national forests. Let freedom reign.

After a short time I received a visit from the arresting officer. "Mr. Monahan," he started, "Are you on drugs?"

Was this even real? "No, I’m not on drugs."

"Should you be?"

"What do you mean?"

"Should you be on any type of medication?"

"No."

"Then why’d you react that way back there?"

You see the thinking? You see what passes for reasoning among your domestic shock troops these days? Only "whackos" get angry over seeing the woman they’ve been with for ten years in tears because someone has touched her breasts. That kind of reaction – love, protection – it’s mind-boggling! "Mr. Monahan, are you on drugs?" His snide words rang inside my head. This is my wife, finally pregnant with our first child after months of failed attempts, after the depressing shock of the miscarriage last year, my wife who’d been walking on a cloud over having the opportunity to be a mother...and my anger is simply unfathomable to the guy standing in front of me, the guy who earns a living thanks to my taxes, the guy whose family I feed through my labor. What I did wasn’t normal. No, I reacted like a drug addict would’ve. I was so disgusted I felt like vomiting. But that was just the beginning.

An hour later, after I’d been gallantly assured by the officer that I wouldn’t be attending my friend’s wedding that day, I heard Mary’s voice outside my cell. The officer was speaking loudly, letting her know that he was planning on doing me a favor... which everyone knows is never a real favor. He wasn’t going to come over and help me work on my car or move some furniture. No, his "favor" was this: He’d decided not to charge me with a felony.

................

In the meantime, I’d appealed my suspension from PDX. A week or so later I got a response from the Director of Aviation. After telling me how, in the aftermath of 9/11, most passengers not only accept additional airport screening but welcome it, he cut to the chase:

"After a review of the police report and my discussions with police staff, as well as a review of the TSA’s report on this incident, I concur with the officer’s decision to take you into custody and to issue a citation to you for disorderly conduct. That being said, because I also understand that you were upset and acted on your emotions, I am willing to lift the Airport Exclusion Order...."

Attached to this letter was the report the officer had filled out. I’d like to say I couldn’t believe it, but in a way, I could. It’s seemingly becoming the norm in America – lies and deliberate distortions on the part of those in power, no matter how much or how little power they actually wield.

The gist of his report was this: From the get go I wasn’t following the screener’s directions. I was "squinting my eyes" and talking to my wife in a "low, forced voice" while "excitedly swinging my arms." Twice I began to walk away from the screener, inhaling and exhaling forcefully. When I’d completed the physical exam, I walked to the luggage screening area, where a second screener took a pair of scissors from my suitcase. At this point I yelled, "What the %*&$% is going on? This is &*#&$%!" The officer, who’d already been called over by one of the screeners, became afraid for the TSA staff and the many travelers. He required the assistance of a second officer as he "struggled" to get me into handcuffs, then for "cover" called over a third as well. It was only at this point that my wife began to cry hysterically.

..............................

Finally I reach the piece de resistance. The week before we’d gone to the airport my wife had had her regular pre-natal checkup. The child had settled into the proper head down position for birth, continuing the remarkable pregnancy she’d been having. We returned to Portland on Sunday. On Mary’s Monday appointment she was suddenly told, "Looks like your baby’s gone breech." When she later spoke with her midwives in Los Angeles, they wanted to know if she’d experienced any type of trauma recently, as this often makes a child flip. "As a matter of fact..." she began, recounting the story, explaining how the child inside of her was going absolutely crazy when she was crying as the police were leading me away through the crowd.

My wife had been planning a natural childbirth. She’d read dozens of books, meticulously researched everything, and had finally decided that this was the way for her. No drugs, no numbing of sensations – just that ultimate combination of brute pain and sheer joy that belongs exclusively to mothers. But my wife is also a first-time mother, so she has what is called an "untested" pelvis. Essentially this means that a breech birth is too dangerous to attempt, for both mother and child. Therefore, she’s now relegated to a c-section – hospital stay, epidural, catheter, fetal monitoring, stitches – everything she didn’t want. Her natural birth has become a surgery.

We’ve tried everything to turn that baby. Acupuncture, chiropractic techniques, underwater handstands, elephant walking, moxibustion, bending backwards over pillows, herbs, external manipulation – all to no avail. When I walked into the living room the other night and saw her plaintively cooing with a flashlight turned onto her stomach, yet another suggested technique, my heart almost broke. It’s breaking now as I write these words.

I can never prove that my child went breech because of what happened to us at the airport. But I’ll always believe it. Wrongly or rightly, I’ll forever think of how this man, the personification of this system, has affected the lives of my family and me. When my wife is sliced open, I’ll be thinking of him. When they remove her uterus from her abdomen and lay it on her stomach, I’ll be thinking of him. When I visit her and my child in the hospital instead of having them with me here in our home, I’ll be thinking of him. When I assist her to the bathroom while the incision heals internally, I’ll be thinking of him.


Cant you people believe thisd crap?? They overstepped their bounds. And peopel wonder why so few of us have respect for this country anymore *rolls eyes*

Personally with this story, I would sue them and scream from the tallest tower and sue sue sue sue sue sue.

I would cite all their incompetance, mental stress, the effects upon the preganancy, the ILLEAGAL imprisonment and I wouldn't stop suing on the states money until every last person involved had been fired and couldn't get a job actiong as security for McDonalds.

If they'd done that in the united kingdom they would now be facing 4-10 years imprsionment and automatic suspencion from airport police (who are the only people allowed to do this sort of secuirty in the UK BTW) for illeagal over-use and abuse of their powers. They would also be looking at a seven figure payout in compensation.

Neon

It's bogus that this sort of thing happens.

Some lawsuits will help to correct this problem.

BTW, some of you never had respect for this country and are just looking for ways to get your digs in.

That security treats everyone like a suspect is because they are not allowed to focus on likey suspects. This is due to political pressue against "racial profiling". It is "PC" liberalism at work when 70yo grandmothers from Iowa are strip searched while 30yo Arab males are waved through the gate.

meaning what Neon? that the US is a festering shit hole? that only this kind of thing happens in the US but not glorious England??? riight. and its a bad thing that the poor British lost thier empire too.

The only thing Neon said was that the victim should sue.

"If they'd done that in the united kingdom they would now be facing 4-10 years imprsionment and automatic suspencion from airport police (who are the only people allowed to do this sort of secuirty in the UK BTW) for illeagal over-use and abuse of their powers. They would also be looking at a seven figure payout in compensation.
"

then he should word himself more carefully. what he said is open to interpretation, however he has been known to dog the US and trump the UK on occasion.

The only one on this thread who got got in some digs at the US was RavenDarkness.


I gotta wonder if her mum and dad are hippies.

They should have driven.... when you fly these days expect to be screened... if you do not want to be.... drive.... either that or keep watching the skies for the next jet coming down....

the only thing that concerns me is that they had the pregnant women exposing herself in public...but i can understand the rest...i even know of people who hide a wide and suprising variety of things in their baseball caps, but people in any part of the world will abuse their power...it's the difference between the haves and have nots...

Sixgun_Symphony- yes my folks are hippies o.0 as am I, I guess.....

Authority annoys me, yes it does....

I dunno...I don't care about any sort of screening, if some security dude touched my girlfriend's breasts without any warning, I definately would be a bit pissed. Even more so if she got really irked about it.

But yeah, lawsuits would correct this sort of thing. I doubt the story is true, but it COULD happen.

I agree with Jordyn. If it hadn't been for the forcing a woman to expose herself thing, the actions would be understandable. As it is, the people involved should be fired for incompetence, including the police officer.


On the other hand, this kind of thing has been happening to black and hispanic males for decades, yet it's only now, when it happens to them, that so many white people get enraged over it.

Raven, I found your story appalling and outrageous. I wouldn't sue (I'll cost you too much) I would go public in a big way. send your letter to newspapers and mags. Post it on the net. Get it on TV. Anything. There are better ways of handling security, for gods sake. I'm not getting into the politics of this and it isn't necessary. You'd have to treat it as an individual case, on it's merits, of which it has none.

Of course I trump the UK, or at least when it has a better system then another coutry, as in this case I'm afriad it does.

However i'm the first to hold up my hand and admit my coutries faults too.

(From the Police and Criminal Evidence act 1984)

The U.K system fo searches require a private room with two same sex officers. An intimate search is that where a person is searched with anyhting that involves more then a removal of a jacket or hat (with the exception of religious headgear which falls under initmate). All body searches are intimate and all cavity searches require the presence of medical personal.

Costly, yes, fair, yes. Does this mean that there would have been a hell of a lot less stress for the woman strip-searched in public yes.

I've already mentioned the penalty for abusing police powers which render a police officer automatically non-opperative and therefore rendering all acts they make an illeagal abuse of police powers liable to 4-10 years imprsionment.

I've seen the results of cases where victims were improperly searched intimatey. I think £1.13 million is the current reccord with less then a 1.1% alteration where the victim is exhonerated. Where the victim is not exhonerated this falls far lower as this is an equitable remedy and all people must come to equity 'with clean hands'

Neon

i think he over reacted initially, he should have just went on with his plans and then file a complaint leaning towards sexual harrassment towards his wife...it would have eliminated a lot of the continueing difficulties he had in this situation, and more people would have been apt to listen rather than dismissing him as being over emotional and uncooperative.

how do you feel about the UK losing its colonial holdings on other nations as well?

Neon,

You ever take on litigation cases?

If the story is true, the I can imagine that some lawyer is going to take their case and become a very rich man.

I vouch for this man to shut the hell up.
You hardly ever make any intelligent comments, are always full of yourself thinking you know what you are talking about.
That avitar picture suits you well. I cant wait until JB JR is out of office. Although i do give him props for cleaning up his mess after 9/11. Alas, the lazy ass FBI didnt do their job and thats why 9/11 happened.
God knows if he gets elected for a second term, hes going to run the USA's economy straight into the ground.

How is he dogging the US or the UK by comparing their law enforcement practices? How is he doing that when he is clearly trying to stand up for people who fall victim to the lying pigs that get paid a good salary for bullshitting around and not protecting the people that need protection, or not arresting the people that really need to be arrested.
And no not all police officers are "lying pigs" so dont jump on me for that one. Many of them serve th