Friday’s slaying of a Transportation Security Administration officer at Los Angeles International Airport is fueling calls from union leaders to give some of the agency’s employees guns, handcuffs and the power to make arrests.
But that would be a tough sell for many conservatives in Congress, where some lawmakers until recently were trying to take away TSA agents’ badges.
The fatal shooting of Gerardo Hernandez and the ensuing gunfight at LAX called attention to a long-running debate over the powers of TSA, whose screeners aren’t considered law enforcement officers even though many of them wear badges. The 39-year-old Hernandez was the first TSA officer killed in the line of duty in the agency’s history.
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