Live and Let’s Fly points to the Associate Press‘s work uncovering documents related to the incident where a passenger was dragged off a United flight and bloodied by airport police officers. We now have the reports filed by police responding to the incident.
In the report, Long said he boarded the United Express flight after being called in response to a disturbance involving two people regarding a refusal to leave the aircraft. United has said four passengers had been ordered off the airplane to make room for four employees to fly to Louisville, Kentucky.
Long said he approached Dr. David Dao to ask the 69-year-old physician to get off the plane. Long said Dao refused and “folded his arms tightly.” Long said he reached out to “hold” Dao and was able to pull him away from his window seat on the aircraft and move toward the aisle.
“But suddenly the subject started flailing and fighting,” Long wrote.
Dao then knocked Long’s hand off his arm, causing the struggling Dao to fall and strike his mouth on an arm rest on the other side of the aisle, according to the report. Long said he then dragged Dao because Dao refused to stand up.
The officers claim to have reasonable with the passenger calmly over the course of several minutes. However he resisted, “flailing and fighting” and the officers lifted him from his seat. It’s only because Dr. Dao resisted, knocking officer Long’s hands away from him, that he fell against a seat and bloodied himself.
Dr. Dao ran back onto the aircraft when the officers stopped physically restraining him. After he was removed again and treated by medical personnel on the scene he was sent to the hospital.
Now, we’ve seen video showing Dr. Dao calmly reacting to police. And an officer states in his affidavit that he’s providing his version ‘under duress’ (fear of losing his job) and that the verbatim statement about what supposedly occurred “should not be considered a verbatim statement but only a summary” so the officer doesn’t want to be held to it.
Nonetheless, the important questions it seems to me are:
- Why has calling the people in response to a customer service problem become United’s standard procedure?
- Why are the police willing to act as United’s private security?
- Why is violent removal considered an appropriate police escalation when a customer refuses to move? One alternative would be issuing a citation, allowing the legal process to enforce appropriate criminal penalties if indeed any are applicable.
United initially screwed up either by determining too late that crew must fly or failing to communicate the decision to the gate prior to boarding passengers. United called police instead of de-escalating the situation.
They could have deplaned the entire flight. They could have brought on someone else to deal with the customer when initial flight crew were unable to convince him to leave. They could have sought another volunteer when Dr. Dao was unwilling to get up. There are several strategies that could have been employed — regardless of whether they would ultimately have been successful, they weren’t tried, so we can’t know.
And ultimately the police dragged the passenger off the plane. The level of force seems inappropriate. Why do we accept such implausible narratives as ‘the passenger hit himself on the adjacent seat, bloodying himself?‘?
Finally we know that United’s initial deplorable statements on the incident appear to have simply taken the officers’ side of events despite viral videos readily available. That’s an entirely separate problem.
Here are the documents regarding the United incident uncovered by AP:
(HT: Live and Let’s Fly)
The sad truth is Americans are one of the biggest bullies and the most aggressive lock them up culture in the world and it shows in our airlines more prominently than in less confined spaces. It also is a reflection how the unions have turned AA and UA into employee first fortresses that have no shame playing the 9/11 card. I ask anyone in customer service if it is ever appropriate to respond as the UA or AA personnel did this month. In my job in the medical industry I would expect to be terminated to put me out of my misery if I treated customers like that.
@gary – I completely agree, why are police or airport security forces used to enforce United company policy? I understand when laws have been violated or safety compromised but police should NEVER respond to an issue like this and an airline should NEVER call police to resolve a situation like this.
When police tell you to do something, you do it period. You may lodge a complaint or suit later. Otherwise society is screwed…
What’s to make of the officer giving his statement “under duress” for fear of losing his job? Isn’t writing a report a fairly standard part of police work?
All of these incidents where the police reports don’t match what the cell phone video shows put all officers in a very poor light. It really happens way to much and lead credence to those who can never take the police’s word at face value.
What the police said about Dr. Dao’s injuries… You’re saying it’s a falsehood and the police gave alternative facts to that. If you’re going to keep referring to transportation security in those types of terms I think we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here.
if a police wants to rape your daughter, let him do it. file a report later
If a police officer tells you to bend over, you better bend over and have that lube ready.
@Andy the officer wrote in the statement that details shouldn’t be relied upon.
Gee, do you think the airport cops fibbed a little? I would have never guessed!
What’s the real take away here? Next time this happens they will have everyone get off the plane to ensure no recording takes place so the police reports remain 100% accurate.
@Daniel,
I rather suspect that the language about being “under duress” may shield the officers from liability or, perhaps, from a claim that they defamed someone voluntarily. It strikes me as being mumbo jumbo boilerplate that may go into every report.
@justsaying your comments about america tell me you know very little about the rest of the world. In some countries a person like dao would disappear never to be heard from again so lets try to keep some perspective when you compare America to the world.
Dr. Dao has an interesting background. Google him.
could you please maybe think of editing your posts before you put them up there? You wrote this:
Why has calling the people in response to a customer service problem become United’s standard procedure?
Do you mean police instead of people?
you also write this:
The officers claim to have reasonable with the passenger calmly over the course of several minutes. However he resisted, “flailing and fighting” and the officers lifted him from his seat. It’s only because Dr. Dao resisted, knocking officer Long’s hands away from him, that he fell against a seat and bloodied himself.
Shouldnt you have said “claim to have been reasonable…”?
There are tons of these and other types of mistakes in all your posts. You really need to slow down and post correctly; otherwise, you make your posts hard to read/ comprehend and undermine any credibility you may have.
Ok this is just absurd. Of course what the officers write in the statement can be relied on. Some of them are saying that not every detail is in there but what they write is true. Its absurd to think they can write a disclaimer and then later say everything they wrote is a lie. The disclaimer alone tells you they are suspect. In addition the main cop wrote no such disclaimer and as far as i can tell he totally lied about dao’s actions. Prison is really appropriate for cops who use excessive force then afterwards lie and say the victim was fighting them. This happens all the time and if it happened on the street the police would have charged him with felony assault and he be facing prison. No sympathy for the cops here they broke this guy’s nose and knocked out some of his teeth then said he was swinging at them. If the cops just owned up to it id be fine with them just losing their job but since they are going to lie then a message needs to be sent to all cops.
@enjoyfinefood his background has no relevance here. Smearing the man over his past is pretty scummy when we have the video of what happened.
Although the cops shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Rather than engage physically with the passenger I can’t understand why the officers would not just inform the passenger he would be arrested or summonsed once the plane landed at destination. So much for de-escalation.
Larry must not have spent much time in Chicago. i love the place, grew up there, but as Jake Blues might have said: … “(Chicago cops and) Illinois Nazis”.
But as already noted by many, they never should have been there in the first place.
The real question is which one of these people will end up on the next season of Dances with the Stars?
Actually Bill as a retired Army officer I have been all over the world. There are no doubt more violent places in South America, Africa and Asia. But in much of the Far East and most certainly Europe we are the bully who loves big defense, dropping bombs and locking people up. You are naive to think we treat people with as much respect as almost any other European country. How long have you lived in Germany or France as a military officer? More than my 3 1/2 years? No I didn’t think so. Oh and they also have infrastructure to include modern airports and roads without chug holes ….. oh did I mention national health care? Any more questions?
Gary – really! – you left officers home addresses and phone numbers! Please fix this!
@estelle gregory — No, I *absolutely* did not. You will see that where ‘home address’ is listed for the officers, the same address is listed for each — a street address for O’Hare airport.
I have felt both parties were likely at fault from day 1.
That said, all of the positions against “unreasonable force” cite the video evidence of the man supposedly being calm and collected. Yet with all this video and all these witnesses I am yet to see or read any proof or evidence that the “bloodying” was caused by the police officer.
If you’re going to be skeptical based on the video, you must also be skeptical based on the lack of video. As I read these “pro-Dao” articles, none of them mention his “interesting” history and all seem to imply that the police beat him down after the social media videos ended (or in a sequence not visible in the social media videos and accounts).
It’s not consistent to tsk tsk tsk and disregard assumptions that support United/Police while heralding assumptions that incriminate them.
Gary – sorry didn’t notice the address was the same – should have known you wouldn’t do that!
As citizens, we need to stand up against unnecessary police force. Whether it be on an airplane or in our communities, let this be a lesson that we citizens should not remain passive when we observe police brutality.
As of yet, there is no evidence of excessive force.
Many are rightly skeptical of the self-serving police reports in this case. However when Black folk actually die at the hands of the police and the police lie about it (for instance the kid in Chicago a couple of years ago who was riddled by 16 bullets from one cop and then the six other officers on the scene all repeated the same fabrications to justify it), many take the attitude that Black lives don’t matter, or at least that ensuring the police have great latitude to control “undesirables” matters more.
Like some of the general population, some cops lie or play fast and loose with the truth when it suits their purpose. Their unions and other cops back them up. That is a shame because being a police officer is a noble profession that all of us would like to trust and respect.
It doesn’t seem quite fair to say this is using the police as private security. If you told someone to leave your property, and he refused, you’d call the police, too, and they’d help you out. That doesn’t mean United *should* call the police in this circumstance.
It’s funny “beat” numbers are assigned to cops who beat up a passenger.
Ugh, man, so many weird things happen anytime something about this incident gets written about.
There always seem to be the Ad Hominem attackers (“but maybe Dr. Dao once did something I don’t agree with, so the police should attack him”). The authoritarian submission advocates (“when the police tell you to jump off that building you JUMP… and have your family file a civil suit later”). The ultra-nationalists (“He should be glad to be beaten by the police in America, in every other place on earth they are lawless cannibals and he would have never been heard from again”). The uber-skeptics (“All I can see is a video and there is a guy sitting calmly and then some officers are practicing MMA moves on something and then an unconscious man is dragged down the aisle. How can you be sure it was what literally every source says it was?” Just in case they haven’t seen the video clearly showing him sitting quietly: http://newsok.com/article/5545867 )
And then mixed in amongst all these incredulous comments there are the occasional reasonable voices reminding people that 1) no, the police should not be there to beat people to pad United’s profits, 2) that things are seriously out of whack in terms of rights once you get to the airport, 3)the US airlines regularly treat their customers with contempt and pretty much all of us have experienced this, and 4) the police issuing false statements on record is very bad and a badge shouldn’t make perjury acceptable.
Number 1 is likely to be the only thing that gets immediately addressed from this incident, but the other 3 items are extremely important as well. Perhaps now that more people are paying to these issues the needle will start to move on them as well.
If someone is in my home (or any other personal property) and refuses to leave, I am going to call law enforcement. And regardless of how “calm” the trespasser is in his insistence he they will not leave, I want LE to use whatever force is necessary to remove him from my home.
Next time, they will either decide not to IDB someone and cancel the downstream flight (or ignore seat poaching – let’s hope it is not your seat – or a truly belligerent person or the like), or if they decide it is serious enough to call police, deplane everyone at the risk of having to cancel the flight. Why do I have the feeling that the rest of us are going to have to pay for this one incident?
@John – Amen to that!
Thumbs up John!
The UA3411 incident was just another unambiguous case of POLICE BRUTALITY. The only differences are that it did not happen in a poor minority neighborhood and the victim was a “doctor” rather than a back man.
United was not blameless but they took more flak then they deserved for what was blatant case of POLICE BRUTALITY. You take out the roughing up of the passenger by the “POLICE” and UA3411 never happened.
The funniest line I read today
Bill says:
April 25, 2017 at 12:11 pm
“Ok this is just absurd. Of course what the officers write in the statement can be relied on. Some of them are saying that not every detail is in there but what they write is true”
Ha ha ha ha what a load of bunk. Police corruption and abuse is rampant though Trump and his supporters would disagree
This was a train wreck where EVERYONE was at fault — including David Dao, whose behavior has not received enough critical scrutiny.
Refusing the FA’s request to deplane was a ballsy high-stakes game of one-upsmanship and brinksmanship. But once badged, uniformed, armed police offers show up, this game is over, for any rational person.
What kind of mature adult thinks that refusing to obey a peaceable order from a badged, uniformed, armed police officer is a good idea, or is going to turn out OK for the citizen?!?!
This was a lawful deplaning order — not a sexual request, contrary to the flip suggestions of some writers above.
David Dao should have complied and then sued/complained later.
And this was in front of his wife, who most certainly did not sign up for any of this. If he was any kind of a man, he would have taken himself and her out of the situation, if only out of consideration for her feelings.
David Dao is a firestarter and a bombtosser IMHO.
A pox on everyone’s house in this.
@Robert
A better analogy is as follows:
1. I rent a hpuse from you and I have a valid signed lease.
2. You decide you would rather have your Son live in the house.
3. You show up at Midnight and say “Get Out!”
4. I refuse to leave explaining I have to work in the morning and I will need time to find a new house to live in.
You can call the police all you want and they will not kick out a tenant with a signed lease unless the lease is broken.
United had many options and they chose the dumbest one they could think of.
John, that is not a good analogy.
The law of landlord-tenant provides that a tenant has a possessory estate in and to the real property, which is a right of possession and occupancy of particular real property, which can only be terminated by agreement of the parties or by an order of a court.
No such real estate interest extends to a seat on an airplane. The airline can change your seat. The airline can cancel the whole flight.
A better analogy would be to occupying a seat in a restaurant, bar or theater. If the management asks you to leave, you are obligated to leave because it is their place, and, if you refuse to leave, you are a criminal trespasser.
If the management’s request was in breach of your contract or civil rights, you certainly have legal remedies for that breach, but Occupy United is not among them.
I am going to have to disagree.
I have never signed a contract to eat at a resteraunt and they can remove me under existing laws.
(Keep in mind if Restaurant engages in a pattern of discrimination they may find themselves in hot water)
An airline is a bit of a different animal than McDonald’s.
There is a specific contract written that says under what circumstances a passenger may be removed and I cannot see anywhere where they were justified in removing this passenger.
(See Rule 21) He had a valid ticket and seat. Furthermore there were better answers than physical force. Deplane the entire aircraft would have been less work and United would have then been able to IDB him under rule 25.
OK. Let’s get to the critical question. Was United unlawful to demand that the passenger deplane?
I honestly do not know the answer to this. It does seem obvious that they could have legally kept him off the plane to start with. Does the fact that he had already boarded change the situation?
It boils down to this:
If he had a legal right to stay, then I will rethink the situation.
If United had a legal right to force him to leave, then he is just another entitled POS.
Flame on.
United had the technical, legal right to remove excess passengers with compensation. The law prescribes caps for compensation, which is 4x the fare paid up to a maximum of $1,350. On a short haul flight, the $1350 cap typically is not triggered. United followed the law and United’s own policy. But in life, sometimes following the law produces an undesirable result, as happened here. United should have deplaned the entire flight, and started the boarding process over.
I am guessing you mean United should have deboarded all, then IVDB’d the 4 customers in order to get the 4 non-revs on?
So the end result would have been the same, but everyone else on the flight would have been Inconvenionced by a delayed/cancelled flight because of Dao.
Yes. Deplane entire flight and reboard with 4 involuntaries.
Once David Dao refused to leave, delay and inconvenience became inevitable, no matter what.
I think if United had announced that the entire plane would be deboarded if a 4th person could not be deboarded, its “likely” someone else might have stepped up to defuse the situation, but we will never know.
I really have no sympathy for anyone here. Everyone handled their part really badly and made horrible choices. But, since the drive-by main-scream media and internet troll lynch mob have excessively focused their bile on United and CPD to the near exclusion of David Dao, I choose to focus on David Dao horrendous choices, in the interest of “equal time.”
When this incident first happened I was on the side of United but after doing research I have come to the conclusion that United broke at least their own contract with the customer, if not the law.
Again, I am not an attorney but I did read over what appear to be the relevant sections in the united contract of carriage:
Rule 25 section A specifically addresses denying boarding when a flight is oversold.
1. The passenger was already seated therefore he cannot be denied boarding.
2. The four seats needed were for NON REV passengers, not an oversold situation.
(Section 25 D vi and vii suggest the employees should not have been allowed to board and would not have been eligible for compensation)
Rule 21
I cannot see any of the conditions he failed to meet in under rule 21
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx#sec25
I guess I see it differently. Once again, assuming United had the law on their side…
Everyone is throwing out “IF’s”, but nobody knows. Dao may not have deplaned even if they tried to kick everybody off. If they did kick everyone off, the extra time might have caused the crew to go over the “allowed time” and the whole flight would have been cancelled. If my aunt had balls…
I don’t think IF’s help the discussion.
United set the rules and everyone on board agreed to them when they bought the ticket. The law was being broken, so they called the police to enforce the law (that’s what I would do too). I do not see United at fault here.
The law tried to get him to go peacefully for several minutes (the video shows that). The video also shows Dao was adament that he would not leave. What else could the law do but use force? BTW I have not seen or heard any evidence that the facial injury was caused intentionally by the officers. The evidence points to the fact that it happened accidentally during the struggle. I do not blame the officers for this. While I wish they had been perfectly honest on the report they filed, that would not have changed the “incident” or Dao’s injuries.
While I certainly wish the incident had gone without such an altercation, it was Dao, a criminal, who caused the situation. I put the blame on him.
This will cause more delays and higher prices.
FYI I am a retired IT tech who has no affiliation with airlines, TSA, police, or anything else close to this story. Just an old U.S. citizen who fears we are pissing this country away.
I tend to agree with you.
RULE 25 does not specifically define what “denied boarding” is, but no other rule applies to the involuntary debiarding of a passenger who has already been seated.
If they had the deboarded the entire flight, which clearly they had an absolute, legal right to do, and then reboarded everyone except 4 passengers, then the involuntary denied boarding rule would clearly apply to these four passengers.
To the four affected passengers, there really is no practical difference between deboarding the entire flight and reboarding the flight minus the four passengers, which is what United could and should have done, or just deplaning the four affected passengers from The fully boarded flight.
For Everyone but the four affected passengers, the difference is Up to an hour of wasted time for the 100+ other passengers on the plane.
Everyone but David Dao realized this, and left begrudgingly — but under their own power.
By refusing the deplaning directive, David Dao was telling over 100 other passengers that he was willing to waste up to an hour of time for each and every one of them, in order to defy and protest the involuntary deboarding situation. This attitude brings into high relief just how selfish, self absorbed, narcissistic and self entitled David Dao really is.
From what I am gathering from some of the other comments, a Google search reveals that this is not the first time David Dell has made himself egregious.
@John
I’m not sure your citation has relevance here since it specifically refers to an Oversold situation which this was not. 25 D vi simply states that UA employees are not eligible for IVDB compensation – I don’t see the relevance here. And 25 D vii only gives reason for denying compensation. It does not guarantee compensation if the terms ARE met.
I think Rule 7 B 1 has at least as much precedence.
Extension of Validity Period:
If the Passenger is prevented from using the Ticket, or a portion thereof during the period of validity specified in this Rule due to a UA flight cancellation or because UA is unable to provide space on the flight, UA will, without additional collection of fare, extend the ticket validity period of such Passenger’s Ticket until the first flight of UA on which space is available in the class of service for which the fare has been paid.
I have NOT read the whole thing…
As I have said before, this depends greatly on the legality of Dao’s actions. But if it is decided that United had legal right, and unless someone can prove that the officer intentionally caused the injury, then Dao should get nothing. The truth is that even if he is at fault, he will still probably get a pay off of some kind. And that will hurt the rest of us.
I think we may need to agree to disagree here, I cannot see how “denying boarding” can be the same as removing someone from the airplane once they are seated. As always, courts are free to interpret laws as they see fit and there may be a specific legal definition that I am unaware of. I doubt this will go to court. As United has admitted they were wrong and have also refunded everyone’s ticket, they sure look guilty. As Johnny Sack said “Why would you apologize? I thought you didn’t say it.” (Soprano’s reference)
I see people looking at the Denied boarding provision but as he had already been boarded and was sitting in his seat this became a refusal of transport, which is governed by rule 21 in their contract of carriage. Looking at the list of instances when United can refuse to transport an individual once they have boarded it doesn’t seem like this situation qualifies for them to refuse transport. This is why United should shoulder a great deal of the blame here. They broke their own contract of carriage when they tried to use the police to remove Dr. Dao.
They made a scheduling mistake and it was going to cost them money. They figured they could use the police to come and bully a passenger off the plane. He didn’t move. The police assaulted him and lied on their police report. The whole ordeal was recorded on video. United then tried to smear the passenger calling him “disruptive and belligerent” and praised the employees for using the police to forcibly remove him. United later changed course when it became obvious that the SOP of blaming the passenger was not making the incident go away, but was instead damaging their reputation.
It’s all pretty gross. That we are expected to put up with this type of terrible behavior from airlines and the police. In the end, it will be United violating their own contract of carriage that will likely make this case easy for a judge to decide in a civil suit. As for the police using excessive force and committing perjury, that is a whole other issue.