Los Angeles: A woman said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane in Texas, and demanded a civil rights investigation as well as an apology from federal security agents.
"I wouldn't wish this experience upon anyone," Mandi Hamlin, 37, said on Thursday at a news conference. "My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way."
Hamlin said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration 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.
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, Hamlin claimed.
Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked if she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was removed, she said.
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. 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 was wearing a belly button ring.
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