TSA vows to train across organization after alleged gropings
COLORADO -- Denver International Airport spent months fighting to keep private the video CBS affiliate KCNC eventually obtained. The security footage is of an incident last February where TSA agents behaved inappropriately.
In the Denver Airport security video, Screening Officer Ty Spicha allegedly fondles a male passenger.
Moments later, a second man gets patted down as part of a plot to manipulate the screening process by Spicha and co-worker Yasmin Shafi.
According to a TSA employee, who reported the pair, Shafi would cause the scanners to identify a male passenger Spicha found attractive as female, triggering the machine to indicate an anomaly in the genital area. And giving Spicha an excuse to perform a pat down.
Three months after that tip, the TSA began an investigation, eventually firing the pair. But potential victims were never identified and no charges were filed.
"I think what it suggests is that occasionally you have some bad apples," said TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger.
But what is going to be done to ensure something like this doesn't happen again?
"What we do in the long run is train across the organization," said Neffenger. "I believe in a consistent foundational training in the standards that we expect people to adhere to. Our core values to treat the public, the traveling public, with the dignity and the respect that you would want to be treated with yourself."
The video's release comes just days after an incident at New York's La Guardia Airport that has a TSA Officer facing sexual abuse and harassment charges for allegedly groping a 21-year-old female in an airport bathroom.
The officer was immediately fired by the TSA.
The TSA was not able to tell CBS News the number of officers who have been terminated for misconduct.