Woman Forced to Remove Nipple Rings at Airport

A Texas woman is calling for an apology after airport security in Lubbock forced her to pull out her nipple piercings with a pair of pliers before boarding her plane, the AP reports. When her chest set off the security wand, Mandi Hamlin offered to show a female guard her unremovable piercings in private, but male guards insisted they be removed. She said she could hear them snickering as she did so.

“No one deserves to be treated this way,” said Hamlin, 37, who is promising litigation if the TSA’s civil rights department doesn’t investigate. But the guards appear to have followed TSA policies. Once an alarm sounds “we're not going to let them go through the checkpoint, no matter what they're wearing or where they're wearing it,” said one spokesman. (More airport security stories.)