When there's one report, you might be skeptical, but when someone else steps forward to tell the same story, there may be a serious problem. According to the TSA, this practice is not part of their screening but maybe that's not completely accurate. If any more emerge, heads need to roll quickly at JFK. As it stands today, they need to address these serious charges immediately.
Ruth Sherman, an 88-year-old frequent flier with JetBlue, has flown from New York to Florida many times, but never has she been taken aside and asked to pull her pants down and show her colostomy bag, as she asserts occurred at Kennedy Airport recently.
It makes Sherman the second elderly woman in recent days to claim that TSA agents forced her to expose herself during a pre-flight security screening. Lenore Zimmerman, a Long Beach, N.Y., resident, says she was required by TSA security screeners to take off her pants as part of a search on Nov. 29. That search likewise took place at the JetBlue terminal at Kennedy.
Sherman, who was returning home Nov. 28 after celebrating Thanksgiving with family in New York, said her initial X-ray screening apparently showed a bulge from her colostomy bag on the side of her body. Screeners then pulled her aside and gave her a pat-down with their hands, including touching her on her legs and her torso near her breasts and around her arms, she said.
