CHATTANOOGA, TN (WRCB) – Channel 3 is getting a first look at security video showing TSA agents allegedly assaulting a Chattanooga St. Jude patient at the Memphis International Airport.
It’s a follow-up to a story reported Only On 3 last month.
Hannah Cohen is permanently disabled by a brain tumor. Her family is filing a lawsuit, after they say Memphis Airport Police slammed her head to the ground.
Surveillance video shows agents taking Hannah to the ground.
“Blood coming down her face, there was blood in her hair,” her mother, Shirley, described.
Hannah was headed home to Chattanooga after treatment at St. Jude Children’s Hospital, when her sequin top set off an alarm in the airport security line.
The video shows Shirley try to explain her daughter was disabled with a brain tumor that left her partially blind, deaf, and easily confused. But agents ignored her, and tackled the teen to the ground after the teen resisted.
“They disregarded what I was telling them and they called for backup,” Shirley said.
Hannah was treated at a nearby hospital for her head injury, charged with disorderly conduct and assault, and taken straight to jail.
Her criminal charges were dropped, but her family is filing a civil lawsuit because of permanent damage caused by this incident.
“If they would do something like that to someone who is disabled, what would they do to an elderly person who doesn’t understand or who is confused?” Shirley asked. “There needs to be some way of dealing with someone who is disabled.”
The Cohen’s are suing the Memphis International Airport, Airport Police, and the TSA for $100,000.
