Breast Inspection
        The Price of Fear At Airports

A San Diego woman said she drove home from Denver rather than submit to what she viewed as an intrusive search by airport security screeners.

Ava Kingsford, 36, said she was flagged down for a pat-down search at Denver International Airport last month as she prepared to board a flight home with her fiancé and 3-month-old son. Ava objected when a female screener with the Transportation Security Administration told her, "I'm going to feel your breasts now."

"She was patting me down, and frisking me, and basically covering all parts of my body, my legs, and wanding me with the security wand. And when I thought she had completed her search, she looks at me and said, 'I'm going to be feeling your breasts now,'" Kingsford said. "I was stunned, and I said, 'I beg your pardon?!" Ava said when she told the screener that she was uncomfortable with it, more security agents and police officers arrived.

They told her that she couldn't board her flight without submitting to the final step of the search. "I was shaking, I was sobbing. I couldn't believe that this was happening to me. It was surreal. It was like out of a movie, with these guys yelling at me, telling me that, yes, she has to feel my breasts or I'm not getting on my airplane," Ava said.

They took her to a private area to continue the search, but she said she was still uncomfortable with them touching her breasts so she tugged down her shirt to show them that she wasn't hiding anything. "And then they said, 'That's it. We're not going to complete the search and you're not boarding your plane,'" Kingsford said. "They escorted us out and said they didn't care how we got home, it wasn't their problem." She and her fiancé ended up renting a car for the 15-hour drive home.

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