Says Agents Failed To Grasp Sensitive Issue

A Texas woman is demanding an apology from federal screeners, after she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers to clear security.

Mandi Hamlin, 37, told The Associated Press the incident occurred February 24, as she tried to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas. She made it through the metal detector with no problems... but when she was pulled for secondary screening by a female agent, her nipple rings set off the handheld wand detector.

Hamlin says the female agent called over male colleagues, who said she would have to remove the piercings. Hamlin said that was impossible -- after all, wearing jewelry in that area isn't exactly the same as wearing earrings -- and offered to instead to show her pierced breasts to a female agent in private.

No go, responded the agents. Hamlin was instead led behind a privacy curtain, where she managed to remove one barbell-shaped piercing unassisted.

The second one, however, a ring, posed problems... and required a set of pliers to remove, which couldn't have been pleasant. Adding insult to injury, Hamlin claims she heard several male agents snickering at her predicament while she struggled to remove the jewelry.

"I wouldn't wish this experience upon anyone," Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. "My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way."

TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird said he was unaware of an incident with Hamlin, and the agency has no clear-cut policy dealing with body piercings. "As long as it doesn't sound the alarms," piercings won't attract undue screener attention, he said.

But if the alarm does sound, things get murkier. "[U]ntil that is resolved, we're not going to let them go through the checkpoint, no matter what they're wearing or where they're wearing it," Baird said, adding most smaller items of jewelry don't set off alarms.

Meanwhile, Hamlin -- with the assistance of activist attorney Gloria Allred -- is considering legal action against TSA... but what she really wants is an apology, which she didn't get from the TSA representative in Lubbock.

Allred called the screeners' conduct "cruel and unnecessary," adding, "The last time that I checked a nipple was not a dangerous weapon."

FMI: www.tsa.gov