[There was a video here]

Back in July, dour British funeral singer (vegan funerals only) Morrissey alleged that an airport security officer at San Francisco International Airport had groped his genitals during a pat-down and said that he’d filed a claim for assault. Just a day later, the TSA denied any wrongdoing in a statement to Rolling Stone:

“TSA takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and strives to treat every passenger with dignity and respect. Upon review of closed circuit TV footage, TSA determined that the supervised officer followed standard operating procedures in the screening of this individual.”

But in August, during his first televised interview in nearly a decade, Morrissey reiterated the claim to Larry King, adding that the officer had also inappropriately touched his “rear cleavage.”

Gawker has obtained the CCTV footage in question, via the Freedom of Information Act. You can view it for yourself and decide whether you believe Morrissey’s rights and genitals were violated or whether the TSA followed its prescribed procedures to the letter. (Or, depending on how you feel about the TSA, both.)

Here is Morrissey’s account, in his own words, along with the corresponding segments of CCTV video:

At 2:30 in the afternoon I went through the usual airport security procedure including the stand-up ‘scanner’, and all was well - no bleeps and nothing unusual.

There’s no timestamp on this video, but this checks out. Morrissey steps into the scanner, lifts up his hands, and is waved through by a female TSA agent. Note the male agent near the bottom of the frame, giving another passenger a pat-down.

Before I could gather my belongings from the usual array of trays I was approached by an “airport security officer” who stopped me...

Nothing to dispute here. Morrissey is stopped at the tray area by that same officer, who appears to pat down the upper half of his body.

... crouched before me and groped my penis and testicles.

Now we come to the meat of Morrissey’s allegation: that a TSA agent, presumably the man seen here handling his shirt and general waistband region for roughly 9 seconds, fondled his genitals. It’s difficult to tell from this video, where the TSA officer’s body obstructs the camera’s view of his hands, what’s actually going on.

Here’s another look, from overhead:

The officer doesn’t appear to have gone “straight for my private bits,” as Morrissey remembered to Larry King nearly a month after the incident. At the very least, he patted down the top half and back of Morrissey’s shirt first. He does, however, appear to move the shirt out of the way and adjust something near the waistband.

It’s also worth noting that the gentleman in the dark T-shirt, directly in front of Morrissey, had his waist area examined for a similar amount of time.

He quickly moved away as an older “airport security officer” approached.

It looks more like the officer moved on to the next passenger while Morrissey was waved over by the older officer for additional screening, but the upshot is the same: as far as the available footage is concerned, this is the end of Morrissey’s encounter with the security guard who allegedly assaulted him.

Let’s rewind for a moment, though, to consider at what point the officer might have, as Morrissey alleged, “put his finger down my rear cleavage.”

Before he crouched down in front of Morrissey, the TSA agent examined the back of his shirt:

This is certainly a lot more interesting. The officer appears to lift up Morrissey’s shirttails, and then the view of his hand is obscured. Is he merely checking the singer’s waistband, or putting his finger all the way down where he can cop an inappropriate feel of butt-cleave?

Here’s another angle:

It’s difficult to tell whether there’s more touching than strictly necessary to clear a passenger’s waistband.

Let’s continue on with Morrissey’s narrative, to the part where he files his complaint and the alleged harasser is called out:

The officer who sexually assaulted me was identified as the General Manager On Duty. Luckily I was accompanied by two members of British Airways Special Services, who were horrified at the sexual attack and suggested that I lodge a complaint. I asked if there would be any point in lodging a complaint since, as with any complaint against a figure in “authority”, the complaints are simply collected in order to protect the guilty officer should the matter go further. The British Airways Special Services employees assured me that a complaint was worthwhile, and so I filed the appropriate information. However, before doing so, the guilty “officer” was confronted, and the conversation went thus:

You have just sexually groped this man.

Officer: That’s just your opinion.

What you have done is illegal.

Officer: That’s just your opinion.

You have no right to do what you have just done.

Officer: That’s just your opinion.

This part of the confrontation doesn’t appear in any of the videos released to Gawker. A camera caught Morrissey entering the building and being ushered past the security line along with two other people— a man and a woman—who are presumably the British Airways Special Services employees he mentions.

[There was a video here]

The overhead view of the scene shows Morrissey meeting up with the two again after they’ve all gone through security and collected their things. They head out of the security area and toward the gates together, disappearing from the frames we’ve been able to review.

Meanwhile, the employee accused of sexual harassment continues to screen passengers as normal for nearly three minutes, and no one appears to confront him.

We can’t rule out the possibility that Morrissey and his British Airways handlers returned to security to discuss the incident, but the confrontation, if it happened, didn’t happen during the 5-minute time frame of this video.

Gawker is in the process of obtaining Morrissey’s assault complaint against the unnamed officer.

You can view the complete footage of the incident on documents.gawkerarchives.com.

Additional reporting by J.K. Trotter.