A Tennessee family is suing after they say TSA agents and airport police assaulted their disabled teenage daughter, WREG reports. Hannah Cohen and her mom Shirley were traveling home to Chattanooga after Hannah's final treatment for a brain tumor in June 2015. According to the Guardian, Hannah had made the trip hundreds of times for operations throughout her life. This time, she set off the metal detector at Memphis International Airport. Shirley says a TSA agent laughed when 18-year-old Hannah blamed the sequins on her shirt. Agents tried to take her to another screening area for a search. But, as WREG puts it, Hannah is “partially deaf, blind in one eye, paralyzed, and easily confused.” Shirley says she didn't understand what was happening and struggled with agents.
Instead of letting her explain what was happening to her daughter, Shirley says agents kept her 20 feet away and called for backup over the PA, bringing armed airport police. "One of them slammed her down, hit her head on the cement, and there was blood everywhere," Shirley tells the Chattanooga Times Free Press. All Shirley could do was take a photo of Hannah on the ground, "handcuffed, weeping, and bleeding." Hannah spent the next 24 hours in police custody. All charges were dropped a few days later, but Shirley says the ongoing stress from the incident caused Hannah to lose a college scholarship. This week, the family sued the airport, airport police, and TSA. “These people think they are God. They think they can do anything they want,” Shirley tells the Guardian. "The one time they let me go back [into her daughter's hospital room] to take her some food, one of them was grinning at me the whole time, and I was like, 'We'll see.'"
“It’s time for justice.”
Last edited:
