American Airlines passenger arrested after refusing to wear mask on board New Orleans to Dallas flight. Repeatedly screams she is not an animal.
Here we go again. An American Airlines passenger was hauled off a plane by cops in New Orleans after she repeatedly refused to wear a face mask according to reports.
The incident occurred on a flight that was set to depart from Louis Armstrong International Airport around 9:30 a.m. Friday to Dallas, The New Orleans Advocate reported.
‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it before,’ retired Tulane University history professor Patrick Maney and fellow passenger told the Advocate.
Maney said two armed police officers came on the plane and ordered the woman to leave after she wouldn’t put on a mask, per federal law for commercial flights.
‘She refused, and they then told her to get up. She was screaming and resisting as they hauled her up and put some kind of restraints on her hands behind her back,’ Maney said.
Define flying etiquette amid a pandemic?
Maney said he could hear the woman screaming for about 10 minutes while in custody.
And it went something like this …
‘She kept saying that she was not an animal and didn’t want to be treated like an animal, things like that,’ he told the Advocate
Adding, ‘Two heavily armed police came and told the lady to get off. She refused, and they then told her to get up. She was screaming and resisting as they hauled her up and put some kind of restraints on her hands behind her back.’
Which is to say who can resist a spectacle while flying over America’s skies?
American Airlines confirmed that that the flight was delayed and the plane was forced to return to the gate because of the incident, the Advocate reported. Define ‘incident’?
Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jason Rivarde said that a woman was arrested after refusing multiple requests to get off the plane.
She faces charges of disturbing the peace, remaining in a place after being forbidden, resisting arrest and simple assault, Rivarde said.
The fracas is one of ongoing incidents on board US airliners that has involved a ‘series of disruptions’ as some passengers continue to protest wearing the face mask amid the ongoing pandemic.
The woman’s identity to date has yet to be made public.
