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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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