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TSA detains 3-year-old in wheelchair [VIDEO]

A disabled toddler is forced to endure an extra TSA screening at Lambert-St. Louis Airport in Missouri.
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Updated Feb. 21, 2013 at 4:14 PM
Published: Feb. 21, 2013 at 3:27 PM

A Missouri couple was infuriated by the Transportation Security Administration after they detained their 3-year-old disabled daughter, took away her stuffed animal and refused to allow them to videotape agents while examining their child.

On Feb. 9th Nathan and Annie Forck were traveling to Disney World with their three children when Lucy, their three-year-old who has Spina bifida and is confined to a wheelchair, was stopped by TSA at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Fox News reported.

“They treated her like a criminal,” said Nathan Forck. “And by extension they were treating us as criminals.”

According to Forck the family had already gone through the TSA checkpoint when an agent approached them to inform them they needed to run a few more tests on Lucy.

“They specifically told me that they were singling her out for this special treatment because she’s in a wheelchair,” he told Fox News. “They are specifically singling out disabled people for this special scrutiny. It’s rather offensive to me as a father of a disabled child.”

After the agents told the family they needed to swab Lucy's chair and "pat-down" the three-year-old, Annie Forck began filming the scene despite TSA's requests not to do so.

“You can’t touch my daughter unless I record it,” she says to an agent in the video. To what he replies, "It's illegal to do that."

“It’s your worst nightmare,” Nathan Forck told Fox News. “It’s bad enough they are demanding they want to pat down my child and didn’t want me to videotape it.”

In addition to everything else, Lucy's stuffed animal "Lamby" was taken from her for a separate screening, prompting the three year old to burst into tears of desperation. The Forcks' recording captures the three-year-old screaming, "I don't want to go to Disney World."

Thirty minutes passed before the family was re-screened and allowed to go pass the TSA checkpoint. The Forcks told Fox News they had no problem during the TSA screening in Orlando.

The 5-minute long video of the incident was posted on YouTube by the family under the title "Shh! TSA Wants to Touch Your Kids." In the description, The Forcks stress their discontent with TSA's unnecessary protocol and the family's frustration with the "no filming" rule.

“Just because you slap a TSA badge on – I don’t know this person – and they’re going to be putting their hands on my child,” Nathan Forck told Fox, “We were going to stand our ground and state very clearly what they could and could not do to our child."

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