An airport security worker at the Greater Rochester International Airport in Rochester, NY, was fired after video footage proved she had handed a note to a traveler that was being processed through the checkpoint. The folded note said, โYou ugly!!!โ
The airline passenger, Neal Strassner, said he was walking through a security checkpoint when an employee handed him the note.
He said he did not open the note, because he was focused on getting to his flight, and that is when she yelled to him, “You going to open the note?”
As he opened the note, the employee can be seen on video bursting out in laughter.
The employee then rips off another piece o cardboard from what appears to be a box of nitrile gloves, the medical grade latex-free gloves often used by security personnel at airports and begins to jot down another note.
Strassner said although it did not bother him, he was concerned about others who would pass through and be handed a note like that which could be devastating to them. So through a Freedom of Information request, one month after the incident, he got the surveillance video.
The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) clarified that through a Screening Partnership Program, hires independent security companies throughout the nation. This employee was not an official TSA or airport employee and was employed through a third party, VMD Corp., a security company based in Virginia.
While VMD Corporation did not reply to requests for information, TSA confirmed the employee had been fired.