Verbally berating a TSA agent is considered "DISORDERLY CONDUCT."
Nashville, TN - A Clarksville mother accused of berating Transportation Security Administration officers trying to pat down her teenage daughter has been found guilty of disorderly conduct.
Jurors deliberated four hours before convicting Andrea Abbott. She had faced up to 30 days in jail and a $50 fine for her conduct in the July 2011 confrontation at Nashville International Airport, but the judge placed her on probation for a year because she had no criminal record.
Judge Joe P. Binkley Jr., warned the 42-year-old "to be certain you don't get into any further problems with the law."
The prosecution said Abbott's behavior "prevented others from carrying out their lawful activities," which is part of the definition of disorderly conduct under state law. Abbott testified during the first day of the trial on Monday that she was not unruly but did yell at officers. She said she was "irritated, but not arguing and acknowledged that she did say a few curse words but she wasn't in anyone's face and had a normal conversation about why she believed the pat-down to be inappropriate."
However, Assistant District Attorney Megan King said in closing arguments Tuesday that Abbott's behavior caused two security lanes to be halted and made a normally one-minute security check a 30-minute ordeal.
"The defendant should have been aware that her behavior would prevent others from carrying out their lawful activities," King said.
Horst said his client may have been loud, but she was only exercising her right to free speech.
"Telling a police officer your opinion, even in strong language, to me that's a First Amendment right," Horst told reporters.
According to an affidavit, Abbott first refused to allow her daughter — then 14 — to go through a body scan machine, saying she didn't want "someone to see our bodies naked."
Abbott and her daughter went through a metal detector and TSA Officer Karen King was sent to conduct a pat-down. King testified that before the pat-down, Abbott yelled in her face that she didn't want anyone "touching her daughter's crotch."
Abbott was accompanying her daughter to the gate but not flying herself. She eventually allowed her daughter to undergo the pat-down, but then refused one for herself. By that point, airport police officer Jeff Nolen had been called and he testified that he asked her several times to calm down, but she wouldn't.
"You're not putting your (expletive) hands on me, this is (expletive)," he recalled Abbott saying.
Nolen said he then arrested Abbott, who he said continued to curse and call officers pedophiles. Abbott had lived in Clarksville when she was charged and has since moved to Texas.
"She gave him no option," district attorney King said Tuesday. "She put him in that position with her behavior."
http://www.ctpost.com/news/crime/article/Mother-found-guilty-in-Tenn-pat-down-case-3973407.php
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/23/tenn-mom-guilty-disorderly-conduct-berated-tsa-officers-for-daughter-airport/
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/13374-mom-convicted-of-disorderly-conduct-for-arguing-with-tsa
