"Man says security made him disrobe at Fort Lauderdale airport"

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Man says security made him disrobe at Fort Lauderdale airport
The Associated Press


FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A Miramar man says an overzealous security guard at
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport ordered him to remove his
pants and then fed them through an X-ray machine at a checkpoint as
bystanders looked on.

Martin Holness, a 34-year-old truck driver, said he was humiliated when he
was forced to stand in his gray-and-black boxer shorts before his trip to
Chicago on July 17.

"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 down his own sweat pants and handed
them to the officer after two quarters in his pocket set off the metal
detector. According to a written incident report, Holness lost his composure
after setting off the metal detector, barked that he had "nothing to hide"
and removed his own 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 it was the first incident on record of a commercial air passenger
spontaneously disrobing.

"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. "Apparently he was very
frustrated, and we understand that."

Stover said multiple witnesses corroborate the security guard's account. But
the agency said he should have requested a supervisor before the incident
escalated. The guard has been reprimanded and dispatched for more
customer-service training, Stover said.

Holness said his trouble began when he set off a walkthrough metal detector
at the airport. A wand beeped as it passed over his pants pocket but Holness
couldn't find anything in his pocket. He asked the guard to feel around in
the pocket himself and says the guard couldn't find anything either.

"I said, 'What do you want me to do?'" Holness recalled. "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?'"

He said the guard told him he would have his pants back before he missed
them. The guard placed the pants through the X-ray machine, found the
quarters, and then returned the quarters and the pants.

Dr. Louis Keith, a professor at Northwestern University Medical School who
saw the incident, said he saw the TSA agent put his hands in Holness'
pockets and then the disrobing.

Keith said he heard Holness ask the guard, 'What are you doing?' and get no
reply.

"As a traveler, I don't think that is the way travelers want to be treated,"
Keith said. "We're at their mercy; that is the issue."

Holness complained to a TSA supervisor before he boarded the flight.
Attorney Clement Dean said Holness is considering legal action.

"Martin was standing up, in public, with his underwear on," Dean said. "And
this was while women and children were walking by."


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