TSA apologizes to traveler over treatment at MN airport

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- An official of the Transportation Security Administration has apologized to a Native American air traveler who says an agent treated her offensively at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Indigenous rights activist and attorney Tara Houska says she was headed home to Bemidji Monday when a TSA agent said she needed to pat down her long braids and then pulled them behind her shoulders and said "giddyup'' as she snapped them like reins of a horse.

Houska, who is Objibwe, says she thinks TSA needs to improve its sensitivity training.

TSA officials investigated, and a TSA official apologized to Houska.