Nipple ring a security threat?

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A woman who was forced to remove her nipple rings with pliers before boarding a flight in Texas, demanded an apology and said she wants the government to investigate the incident.

"It was just total humiliation in front of people I had no earthly idea who they were," Mandi Hamlin, a 37-year-old graphic artist from Dallas, told reporters at her lawyer's office in Los Angeles. Hamlin's attorney, Gloria Allred, said the woman "was given a pair of pliers in order to remove the rings in her nipples ... The rings had been in her nipples for many years."

Hamlin said she wanted a public apology and for the Transportation Security Administration to investigate the incident, which happened in February as she was boarding a flight from Lubbock, Texas, to Dallas.

TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird said he was unaware of the nipple ring incident."I'd be really curious to know what this woman had in her nipples," he said, adding that he had "never heard of any of our people having anyone remove something that sounds as small as a nipple ring."

Allred said the TSA's measure was "cruel and unnecessary." "The last time that I checked, a nipple was not a dangerous weapon."