Marshals fear recruits from TSA lack law enforcement experience

[Nole795]

Marshals fear recruits from TSA lack law enforcement experience

By STEPHEN LOSEY
March 01, 2006

The Transportation Security Administration is looking to its own employees to find new air marshals — and some veteran marshals are not pleased.

Marshals told Federal Times they are concerned that TSA’s push to replenish their ranks means airplanes and passengers will have unqualified people with no prior law enforcement experience protecting them against terrorist hijackings and other disturbances.

“What law enforcement agency takes rookies and makes them undercover?” said one air marshal with nearly four years of experience. All air marshals who spoke to Federal Times asked for their names to be withheld because they are not authorized to speak to the press.

Spokesmen for TSA and the Federal Air Marshal Service said that anyone who becomes an air marshal will finish the two seven-week training programs required of all marshals. They said anyone who becomes an air marshal will be qualified, even if it is his first law enforcement job.

TSA posted an internal job announcement on USAJobs.gov Jan. 12 looking for new air marshals. FAMS spokesman David Adams said the agency wanted to provide more job opportunities for its employees and the internal announcement could speed up the application process, although there are no specific set-asides for agency employees.

A previous job announcement open to all U.S. citizens went online July 2 and will remain open for nearly five more months.

Adams said anyone who wants to become a marshal will have to meet the minimum qualifications in the job announcement, such as three years of any kind of work experience, including administrative, professional, technical or investigative jobs, or a bachelor’s degree.

The job announcement released by the Federal Aviation Administration on Sept. 19, 2001, when FAA oversaw air marshals, also did not require law enforcement experience. But marshals say more than 200,000 people applied in the days after the hijackings and FAA had its pick of qualified law enforcement officers.

Morale problems
Things are different now. Marshals and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association say that air marshals are leaving in droves for other agencies because of poor management and lack of promotion opportunities.

The marshals say their worries about the quality of marshals FAMS seeks to hire are only the latest issue driving them away.

Adams, citing an attrition rate of about 6.5 percent, said FAMS is not seeing a mass exodus of air marshals. The number of air marshals is classified, but has been estimated at about 3,000.

TSA spokesman Darrin Kayser said five TSA employees so far have become marshals. He did not know if any previously served as law enforcement officers.

But experienced marshals who joined FAMS in the massive hiring spree following the Sept. 11 attacks say they don’t want to serve with anyone who has neither military nor federal, state or local law enforcement experience. They say that TSA’s plan could place them and the public at risk.

“When you’re a police officer on the street, you have a field training officer showing you the ropes every day,” said another marshal. “You learn to react and to deal with different situations. Air marshals get thrown in the mix right when they get on the plane.”

“TSA/FAMS is just looking for as many warm bodies as they can find to hurriedly fill in the hemorrhaging losses we are currently experiencing,” one of the marshals wrote in an e-mail to Federal Times the day after the internal job announcement went online. “It almost seems like they are quitting every week now. The only FAMs that are going to be left are former screeners and admin personnel . . . with guns on planes . . . and zero former law enforcement experience. God help us all.”

Is training adequate?
Prospective air marshals are required to attend two seven-week courses at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center training site in Artesia, N.M., and at the FAMS’ academy in Atlantic City, N.J. The curriculum includes firearms training, physical training, and scenarios air marshals could encounter such as hijackings. Trainees also learn how to deal with drunk, high or mentally impaired people.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which works with many TSA employees such as airport security screeners, said TSA’s plan is not a good idea.

AFGE said that many screeners hired in the early days of TSA came from law enforcement and might have made good air marshals as well. But many of those screeners, now called transportation security officers, have since left the agency, union officials said.

“It looks good on paper, but in reality it’s a sham,” said AFGE assistant general counsel Gony Frieder.

But FLEOA is taking a more optimistic look at TSA’s hiring efforts. National executive vice president Jon Adler said it will be difficult for new air marshals to gain experience on the job, but it can be done. Adler said new marshals without prior experience should be assigned to experienced marshals.
And screeners have learned skills on the job that could prove useful as air marshals, Adler said.

Screeners are “making constant threat assessments in what amounts to a tense situation,” Adler said. “Can that experience cross over? It can with the right training.”

http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=1558885

[MP_Steve]

Marshals fear recruits from TSA lack law enforcement experience

Ok, I work at an airport and interact with TSA frequently through out the day. From my feel of things, most of those TSA employees are incompetent and should just stay right where they are.

I would not trust one of those guys riding shotgun with me. Why should an experienced FAM have to do the same. It's not like you're on the plane, and you look over and say, "Ok, This is what you'll do if **** goes down."

Just my two from an MP and an airport worker.

[jacbauer]

correct, many TSA "officers" are too immature. morever, all the experienced ones are either up in the adminstration sector or resigned. i wouldn't trust one of those kids to ride shotgun with me too.

[canuckofapeach]

i wouldn't trust one of those kids to ride shotgun with me too.

And I wouldn't listen to a fool who keeps returning under a different name after he has been banned before. Hit the road,'Jac'.

[intheaircop2]

As a current FAM I am a little worried myself. But I am just a little worm on the end of a big freaking hook trying to survive in this agency. There is nothing I can do about it.

This is how I would deal with a TSA screener who is now my new partner. I would say the following: "Welcome to the agency. I am not sure what background you have but you recieved the same training that I have recieved. For me it all comes down to this. When the sh_t hits the fan you better not piss all over yourself and do what we are paid to do when that time comes. All I am concerned about is getting that freaking plane back on the ground and see my wife and kids again."

But I am not surprised that they are filling the postions as fast as they can. We are so short handed in my office that it is not funny. I am not sure why they are sending all the new hires up to New York and D.C. Most of the other field offices need new FAMs also. I guess later down the road they will send new hires after the N.Y. and D.C. are brought back to full staff.

Good luck to all new hires and pray you are not a FAM for more that 5 years because you will freaking kill yourself. My 5 year mark is right around the corner and I am deciding on if I should hang myself or just use the handgun and end it all. (just kidding) I love life and hope to live untill I am 90.

[igneous]

As a current FAM I am a little worried myself. But I am just a little worm on the end of a big freaking hook trying to survive in this agency. There is nothing I can do about it.

This is how I would deal with a TSA screener who is now my new partner. I would say the following: "Welcome to the agency. I am not sure what background you have but you recieved the same training that I have recieved. For me it all comes down to this. When the sh_t hits the fan you better not piss all over yourself and do what we are paid to do when that time comes. All I am concerned about is getting that freaking plane back on the ground and see my wife and kids again."

But I am not surprised that they are filling the postions as fast as they can. We are so short handed in my office that it is not funny. I am not sure why they are sending all the new hires up to New York and D.C. Most of the other field offices need new FAMs also. I guess later down the road they will send new hires after the N.Y. and D.C. are brought back to full staff.

Good luck to all new hires and pray you are not a FAM for more that 5 years because you will freaking kill yourself. My 5 year mark is right around the corner and I am deciding on if I should hang myself or just use the handgun and end it all. (just kidding) I love life and hope to live untill I am 90.[/B][/SIZE]

What FO are you in? I bet they are sending most new hires to DC and NY where they might need more people the most. Then maybe they will let existing FAMS transfer to other offices or something? Im not sure..

[Audirs4]

I agree


I am a TSO.. An well.. There are quite a few that have no Idea and don't deserve the job... Granted its at the bottom of the food chain..

However, for all the bad ones... There still are a few good ones left... but, the problem seems to be that we the good ones can't ever get into a postion that allows us to work to our fullest and be the leaders...


An it seems that all the people that have never been in the field and aren't leading seems to be the ones that hold the power...

So what does one do?

If I was a key player... Over half the TSO's I work with I would fire... Alot of laziness, and treating people like S**t... An there is such a divide between Managment and the TSO... Its quite sad, and as FAMS know... A slap in the face...

We need leaders, not followers .. People to step up to the plate and we don't have that...

[intheaircop2]

I would rather not say what office I am in, an no I am not in Orlando. I have family in Orlando but moved for the job. I would love to be in the Charolte office,but oh well. I guess I can not complain because I do have a job.

[chewy]

I agree, TSA people would be a bad choice... plus, if they don't hire them then maybe I'll have a shot!?