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A long line of Transportation Security Administration personnel salute the Honor Flag of the United States procession as it leaves Los Angeles International Airport in memory of slain TSA agent Gerardo Hernandez by a gunman on a rampage last week.
How Much Do Tsa Agents Make
The recent shooting at Los Angeles International Airport has raised questions about how airport security can be improved, specifically whether the Transportation Security Administration’s airport screeners should be armed. . In part, this reflects the natural tendency to examine each terrible event with a view of how to prevent its recurrence. But it also reflects Americans’ desire to create a risk-free society. From this perspective, a shooting with victims like the one at LAX can only be the result of a security failure, which therefore must be increased.
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Securing crowded public places is difficult, disruptive and expensive. Securing an airport check-in area will require the creation of a physical security perimeter at the entrances of the terminals where passengers arriving with luggage will be subject to a preliminary screening. But shootings and bombings can also take place in baggage claim areas, so these too need to be secured.
The security measures at the entrances create queues of people waiting to be screened who will be vulnerable to attack outside the terminal. A study by Rand Corp. he advised mitigating potential casualties that could be caused by a bomb by speeding up check-in and security check procedures, thereby thinning the crowd. But this would not have a significant effect in a shooting incident.
Rapid response is the main means of mitigating casualties in such incidents. A shooter determined to kill as many people as possible will continue to kill until he shoots himself or is neutralized by the police. So why not arm the screeners?
Undoubtedly, armed criminals at LAX could have confronted the shooter before the police intervened. We cannot say whether a clash at the checkpoint would have resulted in fewer casualties than occurred. If, however, the shooter’s goal had been to cause as many casualties as possible—rather than to focus on TSA personnel—armed screeners could have helped. But the arming of screeners poses problems beyond this incident.
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Arming screeners would change the recruitment demographics for the TSA. Some screeners are elderly, retired people who don’t feel comfortable carrying weapons. The arming of screeners adds training requirements at the beginning and on an ongoing basis to be qualified. No doubt it changed the pay scales. A decision to arm would also raise questions about the TSA’s authority. Will armed screeners also be given powers of arrest? What liabilities will be incurred?
Would armed screeners be effective in responding to an armed assault? Shootings in crowded areas are extremely dangerous. The risks of casualties resulting from friendly fire are high. Police at airports undergo specialized training to engage shooters. Officers at the airport, both from the airport police and the Los Angeles Police Department, are trained in “active shooter” response. Passengers injured or killed by friendly fire create a public relations catastrophe for the TSA. The public accepts that this can happen when police are forced to use deadly force, but there is already a measure of public hostility toward the TSA. Perceptions matter.
Some of these questions arose when the TSA was first created. The objective was then to ensure a more effective screening than that provided by private contract personnel, whose performance was often abysmal. But there were strong objections to creating another federal force, so that it would not be armed. And with its current 47,000 screeners, an armed TSA would become the federal government’s largest armed entity outside of the military.
In the eyes of many, the arming of TSA screeners would change the image of the organization from a service aimed at guaranteeing safe air travel to an unwanted imposition of federal authority.
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The decision made at the creation of the TSA was to focus on screening. Arrests, and armed response if necessary, remain the responsibility of the local police. The federal government requires that airports have sworn, armed police officers available at checkpoints. They don’t have to stand behind checkpoints like sentries, but they have to be able to respond quickly. If the threat indicates more security (visible or hidden) is needed, then it is the responsibility of the local authorities.
Since its inception, the TSA has formed Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response, or VIPR, teams, deploying them based on threat assessments or on a random basis at train stations and other transportation locations. They consist of local law enforcement officers, federal air marshals, TSA behavior detection officers, bomb-sniffing dogs and other special abilities. These teams are armed. (And its existence is seen by some as evidence of creeping government tyranny, which hints at the reaction to the arming of airport screeners).
What happened at LAX was a tragedy of a kind that has become all too common. The answer in any case cannot be to strengthen security further, create more perimeters or deploy more armed guards.
Brian Michael Jenkins is senior advisor to the president of Rand Corp. and the author of “Al Qaeda in Its Third Decade: Irreversible Decline or Imminent Victory?” Share all sharing options for: TSA agents were promised a $500 bonus after working without pay for weeks. They did not receive it.
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As the longest partial government shutdown in US history continues, airport security workers have become one of the most vocal contingents of unpaid government employees.
“Every day I receive calls from my members about their extreme financial hardship and the need for wages,” said Hydrick Thomas, resident of the national union of TSA employees, in a statement. “Some of them have already left and many are planning to leave the federal workforce because of this shutdown.”
The Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, agents are considered “essential” employees and therefore must report to work even when they are not guaranteed a payment. However, since they were not paid, many agents could not pay for the care of the children, causing them to call in sick. Some are even trying to find jobs that pay cash while the government is shut down.
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On January 11, the TSA announced that it would provide a day’s pay to those who were on duty on December 22, the day the closure was announced, plus a $500 bonus for working during the holiday season . But as of the afternoon of January 16, no employee has received the bonus and some have not received their full day’s worth. If this money ever arrives, it can help with the collection of $438 million in mortgage and rent payments that federal employees are owed this month, but it’s still not much.
According to BuzzFeed News, TSA Administrator David Pekoske sent an email to agency employees saying that all payments will appear in accounts no later than Tuesday, adding that this money will come from “unexpired funds in specific TSA accounts”. This did not happen.
Becky Mancha is a TSA agent in Dallas who is now working without pay. She cried when I asked her how hard things are now. He is concerned about providing gas and meals for his family. #WFAA pic.twitter.com/kjYdt3N2rE— Teresa Woodard (@twoodard8) January 16, 2019
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta is one of several airports that have experienced long security line wait times in recent days. Shekina Givens, a representative of the government workers union who works at the Atlanta airport, told BuzzFeed that some TSA employees received only a fraction of their pay scheduled for Dec. 22. maybe because the airports had entered hours incorrectly. According to Givens, some workers who process payroll are laid off during the shutdown, leaving the processing to staffers who don’t usually handle that responsibility.
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Of the approximately 420,000 federal employees who work without pay, 51,000 are TSA agents. And, according to WNYC, the TSA is one of the lowest paying federal agencies, with the typical starting salary for an agent being $17,000 (other estimates say it’s closer to $25,000).
Federal workers also, by law, are not allowed to strike. Doing so could put their jobs in jeopardy, as in 1981 when air traffic controllers went on strike to demand better pay and working conditions. President Ronald Regan called for them to go back to work, and those who didn’t were fired.
With the lack of options, TSA agents are provided and there is no end to the government shutdown in sight, it is likely that tensions and anxiety in airports will only continue to grow.
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