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Man strips to boxers { August 12 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030812/APN/308120601http://www.gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030812/APN/308120601
August 12. 2003 8:01PM
Dispute over who prompted man to disrobe at Lauderdale airport
The Associated Press
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.
A man says a security guard at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport ordered him to remove his pants and then fed them through an X-ray machine as bystanders watched him stand there, humiliated, in his boxer shorts.
But the Transportation Security Administration insists the man was not asked to remove his pants and did so on his own because he was frustrated with a beeping metal detector.
Martin Holness, 34, a truck driver, says he was humiliated when the overzealous guard ordered him to remove his pants after they couldn't find what made the metal detectors beep before a July 17 flight to Chicago.
"I said, 'What do you want me to do?'" Holness said. "He said, 'Why don't you take your pants off?' ... I said 'Are you for real? Take my pants off?'"
Holness says he complied, but under protest. "I asked them, 'Don't you have a room for this? Some curtains?'"
Holness says the guard then fed the pants through an X-ray machine, found two quarters in a pocket and returned the pants and coins.
"I'm standing in my underwear, looking stupid," Holness said. "Even when I got to Chicago, people from the flight were still looking at me like I was crazy."
The guard countered that Holness pulled his sweat pants off and handed them to the officer. According to an incident report, Holness lost his composure after setting off the metal detector, barked that he had "nothing to hide" and removed his pants without provocation.
The guard told him "No, Sir, that is not necessary," the report states, but Holness ignored him, handed him the pants and said, "Why don't you just X-ray them?"
Lauren Stover, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said multiple witnesses corroborate the security guard's account.
"I'm 100 percent confident that we did not ask this man to take his pants off in full view of the public," Stover said, adding that it was the first incident in TSA records of a commercial air passenger spontaneously disrobing at a checkpoint.
Although the guard should have requested a supervisor before the incident escalated, he wasn't reprimanded because he did "absolutely nothing" wrong, Stover said.
Holness complained to a TSA supervisor before he boarded the flight. Attorney Clement Dean said Holness is considering legal action.
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Information from: The Miami Herald,
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