TSA Guard Hands Traveler a Note That's Not Very Nice

Neal Strassner says he still doesn't understand why she did it
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 17, 2019 12:45 PM CDT

TSA workers don't usually hand people notes, and this could be why. Neal Strassner was going through security at a New York airport in June when a screener handed him a note reading, "You ugly!!!" CCTV footage he later obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request shows her bending over with laughter as she watches him walk away, the New York Post reports. "I didn't open it because I didn't care about it," says Strassner, a technical coordinator flying out of Greater Rochester International Airport that day. "She turned around a few times asking, 'Are you going to open that?'" The footage shows her ripping off another strip of cardboard from a box, perhaps to scribble more words of wisdom.

"I travel constantly and I've never had anything like this happen," says the 40-year-old. "I don't like throwing negativity around. What about a note that says, 'Hey, next time bring me tacos'?" Strassner says he was going to let it go until friends warned him the screener might really hurt someone who's vulnerable to bullying. So he contacted her employer, VMD Corporation—a Virginia-based security company with a TSA contract—and when they didn't respond as promised, he posted the video on Reddit, per NBC News. That's when the woman got fired. But Strassner is still baffled: "I really have no idea what she was trying to do," he says.
(More TSA stories.)

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