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Woman forced to remove bra

R

runningman

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 8, 2003
147
0
So a lady refuses to go outside and remove her bra or find a bathroom. But the security guards are just suppose to know that she's not carrying a weapon. I would like to extend my sincerest apology that the guards are not psychic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21144171/
 
runningman said:
So a lady refuses to go outside and remove her bra or find a bathroom. But the security guards are just suppose to know that she's not carrying a weapon. I would like to extend my sincerest apology that the guards are not psychic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21144171/
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I'm not sure how they could have handled it better. As I was not there I don't know what their attitude or their actual words were, and how that may have affected the situation.
 
runningman said:
So a lady refuses to go outside and remove her bra or find a bathroom. But the security guards are just suppose to know that she's not carrying a weapon. I would like to extend my sincerest apology that the guards are not psychic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21144171/
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And the request was not facilitated with proper personnel (women) or privacy. When she asked if she could use a restroom, they replied "no". No one expects psychic activity. They do expect respect and personal dignity to be given.
 
It seems bathrooms were behind the security checkpoint, so where do you suppose she go to get her undergarments off? Back home, a parking lot, a public bathroom at a park half a mile away? I'd say they should anticipate such problems and arrange a privacy area. Maybe that is too much of a civilized method for your taste.
 
theBB said:
It seems bathrooms were behind the security checkpoint, so where do you suppose she go to get her undergarments off? Back home, a parking lot, a public bathroom at a park half a mile away? I'd say they should anticipate such problems and arrange a privacy area. Maybe that is too much of a civilized method for your taste.
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Maybe they should do something, but I don't think that lack of one is the fault of the guards that were on duty at that time. They could only follow what rules and tools they had available at that time and it would seem they what they could to protect their charge. The courthouse or those in charge of the security should learn from this and either change procedure (maybe make it mandatory to always have a woman on duty) or add special facilities in case something like this occurs again.

Just 2¢
 
"I wasn't carrying a shank in my bra."
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That's awesome.

I say what's the big deal. My wife (along with most women) can take her bra off without taking her shirt off.

These women are magic, I say. Witches!
:eek:
 
I'm sure they could have waved one of those handscanner wands around her breast area and figured out it was an underwire. It's pretty poor in this day and age not to have any female security guards on duty to search women.

The TSA is getting ridiculous. I can just see it now... please remove your belts and underwires before reaching this point. Women across the country will have breasts hitting their knees when flying :rolleyes:
 
It's just security guards abusing their power and getting cheap thrills. They're pathetic...
 
bartelby said:
It's just security guards abusing their power and getting cheap thrills. They're pathetic...
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Seconded.

I once had a security guy in a store who wanted me to take off my ankle splint/cast to prove I was not stealing anything, the door detector went off when I passed by it.

One of my friends has a pacemaker in his chest. he is under 30 and darker skinned - the airport security always take him down when the metal detector beeps and they feel the wire.
 
The problem you have is they wave a wand around her bra and it beeps to indicate metal but it doesn't tell you what it is. Now a pace maker is under the skin and is easily felt. They asked her to go back out to her car which is a reasonable request and she refused. The bathrooms are past the check point they can not allow her to go in there. If she was carrying a weapon then she simply leaves it in the restroom and comes backs and gets it later. You can't have some one visibly watch her take her bra off because lack of cause.
 
Did they increase the sensitivity of the machines recently? I've worn underwire bras for years and never ran into a metal detector issue.

In any case, I think they should have given her a privacy area. Go outside is not a polite solution. And if they thought she was truly a risk, why would they let her go to a restaurant or a nearby area to remove the bra? That strikes me as a bit odd too.
 
I travel quite a bit and the lack of knowledge on the part of many travelers is astonishing. It's as if these people are oblivious to the rules and cause so many damn delays in getting through "security". I have perfected the art of spotting them and making sure I get on a different line than them.

I'm in no way defending the TSA personnel or other security people but they do deal with a tremendous amount of crap.
 
rdowns said:
I travel quite a bit and the lack of knowledge on the part of many travelers is astonishing. It's as if these people are oblivious to the rules and cause so many damn delays in getting through "security". I have perfected the art of spotting them and making sure I get on a different line than them.

I'm in no way defending the TSA personnel or other security people but they do deal with a tremendous amount of crap.
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Yes but in my travel experience my under garments have never set off a detector. Actually, I've worn belts through and they didn't set them off.

On the other hand most women should be able to remove their bra without even taking their shirt off. If you had 7th grade gym glass then it's possible this art was perfected long ago. ;) She's an amateur!
 
I do have to admit that the ability to remove a bra without taking a shirt off truly amazes me. Us guys have trouble keeping what foot our shoe goes on straight.
 
jessica. said:
...Yes but in my travel experience my under garments have never set off a detector. Actually, I've worn belts through and they didn't set them off.
...
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I've had one of those cards that you use to unlock hotel rooms set off a series of detectors and alarms when I tried to pass through customs. Just that one card, not the many other cards I still had in my wallet. Mysterious black magic technology.

runningman said:
I do have to admit that the ability to remove a bra without taking a shirt off truly amazes me. Us guys have trouble keeping what foot our shoe goes on straight.
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Sometimes I'll be driving to work and realize I put my socks on my hands :eek:
They really are years ahead of us. :(
 
runningman said:
They asked her to go back out to her car which is a reasonable request and she refused.
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Nonsense. We don't know where the car was parked. It could have been in a dark parking garage, or outside with a lot of people walking around, which of course wouldn't have made the situation too far off from taking her bra off in the security line. Let's not forget that exposing one's self in a public place is very often a crime.

The only thing unreasonable here is that security managers lacked the common sense to foresee this type of situation.

The manner in which this woman dealt with the situation ought to be an object lesson for us all.
 
So this woman can't take off how bra without taking off her shirt? :eek:. Maybe the security guards just assumed that she can, since most can. It really isn't that hard. I still fail to see what's so amazing about it :p.
 
Wyvernspirit said:
Maybe they should do something, but I don't think that lack of one is the fault of the guards that were on duty at that time. They could only follow what rules and tools they had available at that time and it would seem they what they could to protect their charge. The courthouse or those in charge of the security should learn from this and either change procedure (maybe make it mandatory to always have a woman on duty) or add special facilities in case something like this occurs again.

Just 2¢
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I was not blaming the guards, but the security company or whatever department handles federal building security should anticipate such issues. Besides not everybody is as comfortable with "unmentionables" due to religious reasons etc. Sometimes I sense a "we are the government, do as we say attitude" in these news articles. Still, I gotta say TSA personnel at airports I have encountered have been very courteous so far.
 
Well, I am a security guard (granted for a private institution), and this kind of practice and lack of planning on their parts does make me feel sick, disgusted and humiliated on behalf of this woman. Yes, they could use a wand, and surmise that it was merely an underwire, but if it had been a shank, they would never have known. On the other hand, it is NOT too much to ask to have a nearby bathroom on the other side of the checkpoint or at least a privacy area--and I have such a hard time believing that this ultra-secure courthouse only had a handful of guards and no women available, guard, police officer, or otherwise. Humiliating and ridiculous to ask her to take it off and not even have a place to do it. This HAS to have happened before and they could have prepared for this. I hope she gets a big settlement from their idiotic lack of planning and sensitivity.
 
wongulous said:
Well, I am a security guard (granted for a private institution), and this kind of practice and lack of planning on their parts does make me feel sick, disgusted and humiliated on behalf of this woman. Yes, they could use a wand, and surmise that it was merely an underwire, but if it had been a shank, they would never have known. On the other hand, it is NOT too much to ask to have a nearby bathroom on the other side of the checkpoint or at least a privacy area--and I have such a hard time believing that this ultra-secure courthouse only had a handful of guards and no women available, guard, police officer, or otherwise. Humiliating and ridiculous to ask her to take it off and not even have a place to do it. This HAS to have happened before and they could have prepared for this. I hope she gets a big settlement from their idiotic lack of planning and sensitivity.
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Some sage advice from an experienced voice. Maybe they thought (hoped) she was packing 38s.
 
Sounds like it would be a pretty good job, actually.
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bartelby said:
It's just security guards abusing their power and getting cheap thrills. They're pathetic...
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Thirded.

Sorry, I haven't yet met a polite TSA agent - I was once flying through Miami International and the guard (a guy) asks me to dump the contents of my purse into one of those plastic bins after it went through the X-Ray. I do so, and he picks up a zippered pouch that I kept pantyliners in, opens it and proceeds to thumb through them (no gloves). He fans them out like a deck of cards, and asks me, "what are these?" I was so pissed off I told him they were a food processor, at which point a female agent finally came over and asked him why he was pawing through my pantyliners.

Last year I was going through Chicago and the TSA agents had an old lady, I mean seriously old, who needed a walker to stand up isolated next to the security checkpoint. She was crying because she needed her walker to stand, but they wouldn't let her have it because they were wanding her. Two other guards had to come over and hold her up by her arms while they wanded her.

This past March I was going through JFK International in NYC and having injured my ankle in the City I was walking with a metal cane. I put the cane down on the X-Ray machine, and the TSA agent told me that because I didn't tell them I had a cane (which I thought was pretty apparent), that after it went through the X-Ray I'd have to be wanded and it would need to be wiped for bomb materials. He also gave me a stern lecture about how I could have shut down the checkpoint for failing to alert the guards to my cane.

Oh, but I feel safer. I really do.
 
It's all a ******** powertrip. Always has been, always will be. Just be prepared to bend over and spread 'em from here on out.

Oh, and have a nice day.
 
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