All Over Albany

ALB screener says she was fired for being a witch (and a whistleblower)

From the couldn't-make-this-up file: msnbc.com reports that a woman who was fired from a job as a TSA screener at ALB in 2009 says she was given the boot, in part, because she's a witch:

She was in the top 10 percent in Albany at catching weapons on the X-ray machine. She passed her skills test on the first try. She caught a woman on her way to Vietnam with $30,000 in cash. And she didn't mind working with the passengers -- her training as a massage therapist kept her from being squeamish, as some officers were, about patting down elderly and special-needs passengers.

The assistant director told her he was investigating a threat of workplace violence. He said that her former mentor in on-the-job training, officer Mary Bagnoli, reported that she was afraid of Smith because she was a witch who practiced witchcraft. She accused Smith of following her on the highway one snowy evening after work and casting a spell on the heater of her car, causing it not to work. Well, actually, Bagnoli said she hadn't seen Smith's car, but she had seen Smith. "I thought to myself," Smith recalls, "what, did she see me flying on my broom?"

The woman says she does practice Wicca (and is reclaiming the word "witch").

As you might expect, there's more to the story -- including whistleblowing about alleged security problems, what sounds like less than-great management, and... uh... two black cats.