The victim locked herself in a bathroom

In the July five incident, the TSA behavior detection officers, trained to spot terrorists in passenger lines, noticed the 25-year-old woman trembling and trying to hide facial injuries at an airline ticket counter. The woman at first said he was fine, but later broke down crying and said he had been kidnapped, the TSA said.
The officers separated the woman from her travel partners, leading to her rescue and the arrest of females in the group on kidnapping and other charges, the TSA said.
"Our officers recognized that the woman was in danger and acted immediately to protect her," said Mark Hatfield, the TSA's federal security director for Miami International Airport.
The incident was first reported Tuesday by Miami tv station NBC 6, a day before a congressional hearing on TSA screener misconduct. Several TSA officials said the timing of the news release was coincidental.
Nevertheless, TSA Deputy Administrator John Halinski mentioned the kidnapping case as an example of lovely work being done by agency employees.
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"We stopped a kidnapping fundamentally though the rapid thinking and the abilities of our BDO (behavior detection officers)," they told the committee.
A North Miami Police Department document gave this account:
The incident began when the victim and friends came to Miami from New Jersey to celebrate the Fourth of July. The following day -- July five -- the woman was alone at a Best Western hotel when her friends returned from an outing, apparently intoxicated.
While the victim was lying in bed, woman accused her of having intimate relations together with her fella and "began to violently punch her numerous times in the face." When the woman stopped punching her, a second woman punched her in the face several times.


The group took a taxi to the Miami airport, & while they were at a ticket counter, a TSA behavior detection officer noticed the victim's injuries. The officer said that woman "didn't appear comfortable with the people he was travelling with," the TSA said in a statement. The victim at first said he was fine, but a TSA officer "re-engaged the woman & he broke down crying & said he was kidnapped," the statement said.
"The victim was pulled away by TSA Agents before reaching the travel document check point & Airport Police were called," the TSA said.
Police questioned the woman's travel partners & arrested the ladies. Police identified the ladies as Tori Beato, 19, of Secaucus, New Jersey, & Melissa Pineiro, 25, of North Bergen, New Jersey.
Beato & Pineiro are charged with kidnapping, false confinement & related charges. Both have been released on bond, police said, & efforts by CNN to reach them were unsuccessful. Beato's listed phone number was no longer in service, & Pineiro did not immediately return a demand comment.
At Wednesday's hearing on screener misconduct, the TSA defended its workforce, saying that most screeners behave professionally & that the agency works aggressively to weed out unprofessional workers.