A Dallas woman is demanding a civil rights investigation after she says she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers to board an airplane in Texas.
“I wouldn’t wish this experience upon anyone,” Mandi Hamlin, 37, said at a news conference reported by AP. “My experience with TSA (Transportation Security Administration) was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way.”
Ms Hamlin, who also wants an apology from the TSA, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas when she was scanned by a TSA agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.
The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin’s chest, the Dallas-area resident said.
Ms Hamlin said she told the woman that she was wearing nipple piercings. The women then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the body piercings, Ms Hamlin claimed.
She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped nipple piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.
“Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her,” said Hamlin’s attorney, Gloria Allred.
Ms Hamlin said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a ring.
On its Web site, the TSA warns that passengers “may be additionally screened because of hidden items such as body piercings, which alarmed the metal detector.”
“If you are selected for additional screening, you may ask to remove your body piercing in private as an alternative to a pat-down search,” the site says.
TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird in Salt Lake City said there is no specific TSA policy on dealing with body piercings “as long as it doesn’t sound the alarms.”
Report by David Wilkening
