Posted on 09/20/2011 10:12:05 PM PDT by Huntress
Is it possible to hide weapons in your hair?
The Transportation Security Administration thinks so.
Dallas resident Isis Brantley said she was stopped on Monday at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta after she went through security.
Brantley said an agent asked her if someone had checked her hair. She said no one had and continued on her way. She then heard someone yelling as she went down the escalator to catch her flight.
"I just heard these voices saying, 'Hey you, hey you, ma'am, stop. Stop -- the lady with the hair, you," she said.
Two TSA agents told her she could not go any further until they checked her hair for explosives, Brantley said.
She said she reluctantly allowed them to do it. The agents patted her hair down right there instead of asking to return to a private area for screening.
"And so she started patting my hair, and I was in tears at that point," Brantley said. "And she was digging in my scalp."
She said the experience was very humiliating.
"I was outraged," Brantley said. "I was humiliated. I was confused."
"TSA's screening procedures are designed to ensure the security of the traveling public," TSA said in a statement. "Additional screening may be required for clothing, headwear or hair where prohibited items could be hidden. This passenger left the checkpoint prior to the completion of the screening process. She was offered but refused private screening."
After the pat-down, Brantley complained to a TSA supervisor at Hartsfield-Jackson who then apologized to her.
"She said, 'Ma'am, please, I promise you, I'm going to take care of it. I'm so sorry that happened to you,'" Brantley said. "And I'm like, 'OK, that's weird.'"
Brantley, who styles hair for a living, frequently travels to style clients across the country. She said has worn her hair naturally for 20 years and has never had her hair checked until Monday's incident.
"They've never done that to me, ever -- never, never, never," she said.
Brantley said she is scared she will be harassed again the next time she flies.
NBC 5's Scott Gordon contributed to this report.
I’m only half surprised, given the recent turban-bomb assassination of Afghanistan’s ex-president.
I remember from back when I was a kid the lady that never washed her hair and just used lots of hairspray that had a nest of black widow spiders in her hair. Just sayin’.
Weapons no. Rats maybe...
Doesn’t take much effort to jam a typical take-out wooden chop-stick into an eye or throat. They don’t even cause a blink at airports. I always carry them when I travel.
Bic pens.
Those are good too.
That is BIG hair! I’m surprised they didn’t find any bats or birds nests........
Did she have to buy 4 seats to accomodate her hair? ;-)
Egads and gadzooks!
But they did find two Marmasets, a Maltese Falcon, and lice....really, REALLY BIG lice!
Jimmy Hoffa
This is another outrage. Every vicitm is left to “complain” about being abused and humilated by TSA goons. This has to stop. This woman should not be afraid to fly in this country. She is not a terrorist.
“Do not be alarmed, this is a kindness.”
I just knew I should have pressed the green anchor.
Um... yeah... Most hairsprays will kill spiders.
Probably. But when you’re a 9-year old kid you don’t think about that. I seem to recall one about bugs living in some guy’s ear too.
Hey - whatever works to try to convince your kid that a Saturday evening bath isn’t the worst thing in the world!
“hairspray kills spiders”.
Well yes - NOW I know it after reading this article a year or so ago!:
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German woman laid waste to her family home by setting fire to it as she tried to kill spiders in a garage with a can of hairspray and a cigarette lighter.
Police in the western town of Zuelpich said that when the aerosol failed to finish them off, the 34-year-old woman tried to burn them with the lighter. However, this set the area she had just sprayed on fire and the blaze spread to a hedge.
“It was a series of unfortunate events which led to the damage,” a police spokesman said on Thursday.
“She tried to put the fire out with a garden hose, but couldn’t. Instead her semi-detached house next to the hedge caught fire. It’s now uninhabitable.”
Fire-fighters managed to extinguish the blaze and save the neighbouring house, which sustained broken windows and some charring. The spokesman estimated the total cost of the damage at well over 100,000 euros (68,000 pounds). No one was hurt.
“The family have had to look for somewhere else to stay,” he said. “The spiders are gone though — that problem was solved.”
It's a wonder we kids didn't burn down several houses. Our favorite method of obtaining fish bait was to tie newspapers to a pole, set the paper alight, and poke the flame up under wasp nests built under the eaves. The flames killed (or singed the wings of) the adult wasps -- then we could knock the nest down safely and use the larvae inside it for bait.
My mother taught me that trick. I taught my son a safer way: a bread bag filled water with a capful of Mr. Clean in it makes a deadly "water balloon bomb" for wasps. It destroys the waxy coating on their bodies and (via their spiracles) literally drowns them -- almost instantly.
But, I must admit that water bombs aren't as dramatic as incendiaries... '-)
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