Airport Worker Fired for Slipping ‘You Ugly' Note to Traveler

Neal Strassner says a security guard handed him a torn piece of paper with the two words scrawled on it

A security screener at a New York airport is out of a job after slipping a note to a traveler that read: "you ugly."

Neal Strassner was going through a security checkpoint at Greater Rochester International Airport in late June when the security guard handed him a torn piece of paper with those words scrawled on it, NBC News reported.

Strassner said he only recently obtained a copy of security footage from that day through the Freedom of Information Act.

"I called the airport and I tried to get the information and they said I had to talk to the county," Strassner said Friday. "I called the county, and they said that was the only way I could get it." 

After he passed through the checkpoint and began walking away, Strassner said he heard the worker yell back at him, “You going to open the note?”

The employee who handed him the note worked for VMD Corporation, a security company based in Virginia and contracted through the Transportation Security Administration. Strassner said the company had promised to contact him about the episode by Aug. 13. When he hadn't heard from them by Thursday, he uploaded the nearly two-minute long video to Reddit.

Within two hours, he said the company contacted him, which he attributes to "the power of the internet."

VMD did not immediately return a request for comment. TSA said the employee was fired.

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