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NPR reports
Passengers on a United Express flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., were horrified when a man was forcibly removed--violently wrenched from his seat and physically dragged down the aisle. [...] Videos of the scene have prompted calls to boycott United Airlines.
[...] The Chicago Department of Aviation [...] says the actions of the security officers were "not condoned by the Department" and that one individual has been placed on leave pending a review.
[...] Passengers had already boarded on Sunday evening [April 10] at O'Hare International Airport when United asked for volunteers to take another flight the next day to make room for four United staff members who needed seats.
The airline offered $400 and a free hotel, passenger Audra D. Bridges told the Louisville Courier-Journal. When no one volunteered, the offer was doubled to $800. When there were still no bites, the airline selected four passengers to leave the flight--including the man in the video and his wife.
"They told him he had been selected randomly to be taken off the flight", Bridges said.
[...] The man said he was a doctor and that he "needed to work at the hospital the next day", passenger Jayse D. Anspach said.
[...] Both Bridges and Anspach posted videos of three security officers, who appear to be wearing the uniforms of Chicago aviation police, wrenching the man out of his seat, prompting wails. His face appeared to strike an armrest. Then they dragged his limp body down the aisle.
Footage shows the man was bleeding from the mouth as they dragged him away. His glasses were askew and his shirt was riding up over his belly.
"It looked like he was knocked out, because he went limp and quiet and they dragged him out of the plane like a rag doll", Anspach wrote.
Previous: Days After United Settlement, Baggage Handler Locked in Cargo Hold on NC-to-DC Flight
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:43PM (5 children)
Conservatives are all like that: they thump their chests and scream "law and order!!"
You must know some strange conservatives. Maybe they're all neocons? Do consider that conservatives are classically the people who are for gun rights and self-defense. Personally, in this case, my dream would be for the doc to have successfully defended himself. From what I've read (including a couple of articles by people claiming to be lawyers), both United and the cop were acting way beyond the bounds of their authority. The only question is whether United will pay him millions, or tens of millions. The cop, of course, will get a week of administrative leave.
On which topic: It's time and past time that people stopped accepting illegal actions by government actors. Whenever a cop beats a suspect ("gee, he was resisting arrest"), it *is* swept under the rug. The only reason this incident has turned into a shitstorm is because the abuse was at the behest of a private corporation. If this had been a case of arresting a suspect (but, oops, got the wrong guy, so sorry), it wouldn't have caused a ripple.
We should ask ourselves: why do we allow government actors to use violence against nonviolent citizens _at_ _all_? (93% of SWAT raids are used for non-dangerous, non-violent situations [washingtonpost.com]). And when it happens, why are the citizens not allowed to defend themselves, including with deadly force? [thefreethoughtproject.com]
As a pretty conservative guy, I find the United incident appalling, and I hope that it stays in the news and helps spark more public awareness of violence by government actors.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:09PM (4 children)
You must know some strange conservatives. Maybe they're all neocons?
That's what typical conservatives are these days. If you don't fit that mold, then you're not a typical conservative.
You complain about violence by cops and unnecessary SWAT raids, but the conservatives who now run our government, and our very conservative Attorney General, don't think police brutality is a problem at all, and are big fans of the War on Drugs (which is responsible for those SWAT raids). So what kind of conservative are you? Obviously not a very good one, and certainly not one in tune with the conservatives who have elected the current conservative government.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:51PM (2 children)
You're playing their game and you don't even realize that you are being suckered.
"Conservative" means conserving the status quo.
If you don't want to conserve the status quo, you are NOT "Conservative".
As you move away from the "everything is pretty much OK as it is; let's keep it this way" position, you move to a more RADICAL place.
RADICAL is the -opposite- of "Conservative".
These people labeling themselves "Conservative" is no different than the Nazis or DPRK naming themselves with non-appropriate terms.
The fact that Lamestream Media repeats this swill exacerbates the problem.
The word you seek is Reactionary.
These people want to go -backwards- in time. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:23AM (1 child)
Wrong. No True Scotsman.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @02:24AM
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Consider the normative authoritarian doofus OriginalOwner's missive carefully: "conservative means preserving the status quo", with the status quo being the collapse of the US economy via Robamacare, mandatory schools that harm US children's ability to think for themselves, oppressive taxation, and rampaging "law" enforcement.
What, did you think "Conservative" stood for low taxes, small government, and the Bill of Rights? Time to stop using a now-meaningless buzzword and pick a useful descriptor. (Mine is "anti-slavery".)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @10:09PM
the difference is that the conservatives in office are not the same as the conservatives that routinely vote them in.
There are certainly examples of the type in question -- gun rights and self defense, but that does not a conservative platform make. That is just individual rights in a small scale.
The conservatives in office are primarily for big business and the lifting of regulation that can restrict a person from being able to empower oneself--but to allow that to happen via ones own power and hard work, which most people seem to be disallusioned with because of the forces of big business.
Truly, those that vote for their one or two issues are enabling government officials (republican and democratic) to enable legistlation not in their own personal best interests, because they focused on a narrow few.
I personally would prefer health insurance over my ability to carry a concealed weapon -- heck I'll strap it on and carry it in the open just to show what I got -- but there's laws about that, too. Ultimately, people often get a lot of what they didn't want when voting for what they do. I think the present administration is just like that.
Most of it is bankers and rich people, and our OP is clearly concerned with individual rights. I am with him -- but not with who is in office.