Should United Airlines Officers Be Charged for Assault?

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My own experience is that most of them are, but over the years I have noticed more of them at least appearing to be more militant in their dress, grooming and mannerisms. Police officers are people working for paychecks just like anyone else, but then not all of them desire to be like "Andy of Mayberry" who usually does his job well enough without ever carrying a gun...and my point is this:

Did the officers who dragged that man from the plane in that kind of way simply do that for a paycheck or because they knew nobody could at that moment lawfully stop them from doing so just because they were being brutes?

I've taken a long train trip, and will probably never do so again. Caged for hours on end with random delays, unpredictable breaks for fresh air, starting a little late and arriving half a day late? What part was I supposed to like?

United Airlines does, with the help of law enforcement, have the right to forcefully remove people that can be legally deemed "trespassers" even if it's BS. BUT it was not in thier best business interests as we see here. It would have been better to let the guy keep his seat (that he paid for in good faith) and send thier employee on a later flight or as a last resort even buy a ticket with another airliner going to the same place.

This incident won't be forgotten for a long time and people will be flying with other airlines as a result causing major revenue loss for United.

^^ Gotta love it! ^^

However...

I think that's what this is about.

We learned that cops can legally boot you off the plane if the property owner desires it.

So, yeah, better obey the cops.

This passenger might have been jailed and fined if he wasn't in the spotlight.

I think you mean to tell people to always fly first class so they won't have to worry about it, either.

Good point.

Apparently, none of the "randomly selected" were in 1st class.

I think that anyone who supports this business should make it count. Vote with your feet and your checkbook. Give real presents to the policemen, like you would want to get.

Keep in mind this is all I know of the incident and I'm just making a funny.

Apparently Amtrak sent its police to the same charm school the Chicago airport did,

http://6abc.com/news/chaos-erupts-in-pe ... n/1875145/

It looks like no one is immune...

mickey looks like he is "having a ball" being in the arms of a burly police man.
what would minnie think?


anyway, i reckon the passenger smelled the opportunity for litigation from the outset.

there were supposedly 4 staff that needed seats, and so the other 3 passengers must have complied and left.

this passenger was defiant from the outset.

he did not ask why they chose him out of everyone to evict from the plane as i would have.

he was just dismissive and rude and so tempted the authorities to apply some forcible encouragement with no explanation (since the man was not in a mood to receive one).

he then went into a "squealing" mode which indicated that he wanted attention and witnesses.

there is no explanation as to how he got his bloody mouth, so it is entirely possible that he butted his face against a seat support on the way down the aisle he was being dragged along.

i reckon he is a "litigation opportunist" (like people who search for cracks in the footpath to stumble over and claim for injury).

i do however agree that alternative transport for the staff should have been arranged.

and if they (UA) are on such a tight schedule that 4 late staff will cause financial losses, then they are remiss in not having contingency staff available at the destination.

whatever. it is just a bone thrown into the media that is food for discussion.

Pullman trains. Not modern Amtrack trains. Totally different experience.

Mr Pullman set up a company in the late 19th century to staff railroad passenger trains. The result was that every passenger train (regardless of which railroad company it was on) from 1900 until my Boomer childhood of the mid Sixties was like a luxury hotel on wheels.

The regular passenger cars had comfortable roomy seats. They had sleeper cars (little hotel rooms). Observation cars (domes on top so you could see the Western scenery go by). And the dining cars were luxurious restaurants on wheels with waitstaff. As a child I used to explore the train itsself -walk the length. Never felt confined.

That was how we visited our out west relatives from our starting point in Washington DC back in the day.

Even when it was bad it was good. We once had a long stopover in Chicago's Grand Central Station -a whole day to kill between connecting trains. So mom took took me and sis to see the big museum in Chicago. The one that has a real Stuka dive bomber hanging from the ceiling posed to fight a real Spitfire also hanging from the cieling. And we got to tour the real German U boat that they captured in the war on display. Never seen so much coolness in one place!


Then I actually remember a moment in the late sixtes Dad saying wistfully "well...passenger trains are gone now...that was probably the form of transportation you kids had the most fun on [it was]". After that it was planes or the car only. Bummer!

As a grown up in the Nineties I took the train from Washington to Massachusettes. The passenger cars are the same as the old Pullman cars, but theyre not the same. Much more cramped. Then after some amount of hours the staff orders you to get up and go to lunch, and marches you the length of the train to get lunch. And lunch is bought in car that consists of a counter, and a bunch of vending machines that makes a seven-eleven look like the Ritz Carlton. Compared to the train travel that I took for granted as a child as it was a Soviet Gulag! But then the Amtrack leg was finished at New York. And I switched to another train. And then on top of it being a gulag, it became a slow moving gulag stopping at every little town (the length of the tiny state of Connecticutt took longer than the entire distance from Washington DC to New York on Amtrack).

Definitely not the same thing as a Pullman train.

Mere speculation...


I do not know what the man had first been told about why he was being ordered from the plane, but the officers were not in any way obliged to persuade him of anything. Their charge was to (politely, I assume) order him to leave and to then (as gently as possible, I assume) remove him if he did not willingly comply with the order...and his "'squealing' mode" and whether or not he wanted attention and witnesses is completely irrelevant.


If so, that would only help to further prove what we already know: The officers did a piss-poor job of removing the man from the plane...and I have heard there are United pilots saying the same.

That would be most excellent.
I took Amtrak's California Zephyr from Omaha,NE to Oakland,CA and it was awesome.
They do have a dining car and a glass viewing car on that route.There used to be a smoking car but the crew told me that removed that option becuse people kept sneaking liquor on and fighting.Bummer for us smokers.
They had ice cold Heineken and Sierra Nevada for sale in the canteen.
Th scenery thru the Rockies,desert and Sierra Neveadas was incredible.
When the train runs alongside the river the floaters moon it.lol
On the return trip two passengers got really drunk on sneaked in booze after Denver.The conductor noticed they had pulled the overhead lights out of the ceiling,removed the seats and made a hobo nest on the floor.One drunk went peacefully enough to the train" jail"'the other didn't.He told the conductor he would "f**k him up,"conductor called for cops at the next small stop in NE.So when we got there,the cops boarded to remove the drunk.The drunk pulled out a large pair of sissors and jabbed them at the cop.The cop knocked them out of his hand,they went sliding down the aisle.Then he grabbed the old drunk,who was pretty feisty for an old fart.Cop called for back up,so then his female partner boarded and effectively subdued the geriatric trouble maker and led him off the train.
So,this guy had sissors and he didn't get a beat down,it only took two local cops,and he was removed without any physical injuries.Maybe the airlines need to hire country cops from Nebraska,they were more efficient.
When they looked at the drunk's belongings on the overhead compartment they found a big ass bag of buds sprinkled with what looked like hydrocodone pills.lol

No offense is intended, toward present company, but outspoken libertarians will complain that doctors are salesmen, meeting quotas. Maybe, this person is avaricious.

Peaceful approaches, which the airline might have used --

a. Each passenger is pre-assigned to a specific seat, all sales being final; they are leveraging a valuable resource.

b. The computer could tell the boarding agent / clerk, when the plane's capacity has been reached.

Notice that the doctor (like him, or not) is seated. That means he has boarded, first.

The last person could be the last served.

(Without messing-up anyone's face.)

I am large and physically-coordinated. I have been on-call for this kind-of stuff, and look who is the pacifist, in these threads. This is something dirty, and, if you must dirty your hands, you should accept full, moral responsibility.