One of the worst security moments ever. Wait in line, etc. You know it's Denver, fine. Officer…read morechecks my ID, waves me through, I drop off my bag to be x-rayed. After passing through the full-body scanner and cleared, a young woman (mid-twenties?) comes up to me after I had retrieved my carry-on from the belt. Accompanied by a female TSA officer who looked younger than she was, she asked me if I would record her pat down. I said sure (I was in no rush).
The young woman is clearly nervous, but the officer didn't help by telling her rudely to set her bag on the table. After pulling on a pair of gloves, she asks if she (the young woman) has ever been patted down before. No, it's her first time. Of course, the officer has to say (rudely), "Well, this one's going to be pretty through. I'm going to have to pat down your whole body with my hands, including sensitive areas." She then proceeded to quickly run through the procedures and told the woman to turn around, spread her legs, and put her arms out, palms up.
What followed, I could only describe as a groping. The woman was wearing an oversized tee and black Lululemon leggings. The officer, from the back, said she was going to lift her shirt up to the top of the waistband. Fine. Then she said she was going to "use her fingers and pinch around the waistband to search you." It was not a pinch. The officer used her fingers to GRAB the leggings and pull them away from the body, more like. After finishing that, she proceeded to run her full hand across the INSIDE of the waistband! And boy, she put her hands pretty far up the "upper thigh". Both the back and front waistband and thigh checks were equally invasive. And her hand that was up in the thigh stayed up there when she searched...actually, I think it did. She put her hand so high up I couldn't even see the blue of her gloves. And mind you, the poor young woman is wearing skin-tight black leggings. I understand they need to check, but sheesh!
But the chest pat down was the worst. Can't believe it actually happened like this. Officer first placed her left hand on the woman's shoulder, then her other hand straight up and down between the breasts, and proceeds to go up and down multiple times before sweeping below the bra line (for both sides). She then hesitated before moving on and used THE FRONT OF HER HAND to feel below the bra. She tells the woman "I need to check this area thoroughly, I think I feel something. Do you have anything concealed underneath your bra?" WHAT????!!! She then uses her hands with "significant pressure to ensure detection", as she put it, under the bra for a good five minutes, before finally clearing the area and moving on to finish the pat down. She also told the woman rudely not to wear leggings as they are "so tight and we officers have to make sure you're not hiding anything underneath, and we gotta check."
TERRIBLE! Do bad I can't see the officer's badge, but she looked college-aged with her blond hair in a bun and was wearing the long-sleeved uniform shirt and blue gloves, obviously.