Morrissey vs. the TSA: “I Was Sexually Assaulted!”

Anyone who’s ever had to endure travel through the US has grown to hate the TSA. Granted, some airports are worse than other (LAX, EWR and ATL are truly awful while I’ve had almost pleasant experiences in LAS and BNA), but overall, going through airport security with the TSA is a miserable experience. This isn’t going to help.

A number of reports have Morrissey alleging sexual assault at the hands of a TSA officer in San Francisco. Groping of junk was alleged. However, there has been an update. From Rolling Stone:

UPDATE: A TSA spokesperson has denied any officer misconduct to Rolling Stone. “TSA takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and strives to treat every passenger with dignity and respect,” Mike England says. “Upon review of closed circuit TV footage, TSA determined that the supervised officer followed standard operating procedures in the screening of this individual.”

Morrissey claims he was sexually assaulted by a security officer who grabbed his genitals after a routine security check at the San Francisco Airport on July 27th, according to a post from the musician on True to You.

The incident reportedly took place around 2:30 p.m. after Morrissey had finished regular security procedure, without problem, and was gathering his belongings. “I was approached by an ‘airport security officer’ who stopped me, crouched before me and groped my penis and testicles,” Morrissey wrote. “He quickly moved away as an older ‘airport security officer’ approached.”

I’ve been subjected to some pretty vigorous and thorough TSA pat-downs in my travels, although the worst came recently at the hands of a non-TSA person while leaving Montego Bay, Jamaica. The female security officer got pretty deep inside the waistband of my cargo shorts when one of the zippers set off the metal detector. It was intrusive enough that I seriously considered filing a complaint.

But back to the Mozzer: what really happened at SFO? Who knows?