Very strange story here. Hope the person wins this.
https://www.azfamily.com/2022/06/06/law ... days-jail/

A man spent 17 days in jail due to AA wrongly identifying him as a burglar at DFW in 2020.

FGITD wrote:

Good luck with that one. In my aviation career I have yet to be granted the right to arrest people.

AA provided info, from that point on it was up to the police to make their determination. AA didn’t take 17 days to compare 2 photos.

Also interesting that anyone from AA even released the info. Everywhere I’ve worked, unless you were CBP handling an international flight or had a warrant…you would not be getting pax info.

I could find nothing in the article that was related to AA other than that the guy took an AA flight (and possibly so do the suspect) and that it happened at its hub.

This is settlement chasing.

He may be able to sue the cops or the city/town that the cops worked for.

FGITD wrote:

Good luck with that one. In my aviation career I have yet to be granted the right to arrest people.

AA provided info, from that point on it was up to the police to make their determination.

If AA provided info that made no logical sense they should own up to it and compensate. Anyone can understand that providing wrong info to the police can lead to bad outcomes.

Jetty wrote:

FGITD wrote:

Good luck with that one. In my aviation career I have yet to be granted the right to arrest people.

AA provided info, from that point on it was up to the police to make their determination.

If AA provided info that made no logical sense they should own up to it and compensate. Anyone can understand that providing wrong info to the police can lead to bad outcomes.

Agreed, but there was nothing like that in the article. Could be that its not public.

If AA did not follow their own policy he has a claim. Airport employees are NOT allowed to provide manifest information to police. They are to be referred to corporate security and AA legal to get that information, and it would likely require a subpoena from a court. Its none of AA's business if someone stole from a gift shop at the airport. The article is not clear how the airport PD got the name, but I think policy was not followed.


Here is a more in-depth article that describes what he went through

https://news.yahoo.com/man-sues-america ... 00813.html

DTWLAX wrote:

Very strange story here. Hope the person wins this.
https://www.azfamily.com/2022/06/06/law ... days-jail/

A man spent 17 days in jail due to AA wrongly identifying him as a burglar at DFW in 2020.

I think the article is poorly written, the Airline would not have accused a person of a robbery in shop, that would be the shop owner. The poilice would act on the complaint of the shop owner.

Also from the article, did the Police ask for the name of everyone on the flight or only people matching the description?.

Also if it took 17 days for the Police to realise that the man they were holding was not the one in the picture, then that is not down to AA.

From what I've read, the police asked for the flight manifest and instead corporate security did their own investigation and sent only his name over. Effectively, falsely accusing him.

Sounds to me this is the sort of case that the victim will be represented by a big name attorney specializing in this sort of thing, and will see a low multimillion settlement. The airline and New Mexico will be doing the payouts. They likely should make a quick $1 million offer to settle.

I don't think we have 100% of the story. 17 days in jail and this guy never demanded an attorney? That would have been my first call. There may be some liability her but to whom? We will never know the full true story of who gave his name to the DFW PD.

This journalist should be fired... I feel like I just had my brains sucked out reading this article... Did anyone read the part where the guy "just found out" he had outstanding warrants?

If his attorney recommends he go after the airline rather than various levels of government, then I don't think he can say he has adequate representation yet.

Something is missing from the public part of this story.

tlecam wrote:

FGITD wrote:

Good luck with that one. In my aviation career I have yet to be granted the right to arrest people.

AA provided info, from that point on it was up to the police to make their determination. AA didn’t take 17 days to compare 2 photos.

Also interesting that anyone from AA even released the info. Everywhere I’ve worked, unless you were CBP handling an international flight or had a warrant…you would not be getting pax info.

I could find nothing in the article that was related to AA other than that the guy took an AA flight (and possibly so do the suspect) and that it happened at its hub.

This is settlement chasing.

He may be able to sue the cops or the city/town that the cops worked for.

There is no chance of a successful lawsuit against the police or municipality based on the facts in the article. Police are largely immunized from anything less than deliberate and gross misconduct. Short of the police knowing his innocence and arresting him anyway, they will not be held accountable.

NameOmitted wrote:

If his attorney recommends he go after the airline rather than various levels of government, then I don't think he can say he has adequate representation yet.

Something is missing from the public part of this story.

They are largely immunized from wrongdoing by U.S. judicial doctrine. There's nothing to "go after."

usflyer msp wrote:

From what I've read, the police asked for the flight manifest and instead corporate security did their own investigation and sent only his name over. Effectively, falsely accusing him.

Yup. This is the key part that, if true, makes AA liable for this mistake. If cops asked for the manifest and were given only one name, then they can assume he was the only person on the plane. Sounds stupid, but hey that's the info they got from AA.

MRYapproach wrote:

usflyer msp wrote:

From what I've read, the police asked for the flight manifest and instead corporate security did their own investigation and sent only his name over. Effectively, falsely accusing him.

Yup. This is the key part that, if true, makes AA liable for this mistake. If cops asked for the manifest and were given only one name, then they can assume he was the only person on the plane. Sounds stupid, but hey that's the info they got from AA.

I would bet the video footage was compared to passenger boarding time stamps and this was used to narrow down a passenger name. And the time on the computer system and the time on the video probably do not match exactly.

I wonder what the value of the shop lifted items was. In some places police are not even prosecuting shoplifters anymore unless the value is over a certain amount. This is the first time I have ever heard of it happening at an airport, but it may be more common than we know.

What a dreadful story. But I am flabbergasted that it took so long for him to hire a solicitor/lawyer. If he’d done that the day he was arrested, he probably would have been out that same day.