Originally Posted by
mdkowals
As a matter of principle, you shouldn't call law enforcement unless you are ok with the situation ending violently. Law enforcement does not have the authority to negotiate with the airlines, offer the passenger anything, offer the airline anything, or do anything else of non-violent subsance. They're only relying on the threat of them being there to be enough to move the passenger before the situation escalates to violence. If the situation was not to the point that required a violent escalation, and nobody on the plane reasonably felt they were in physical harm, then there is no reason to involve the police - period.
I have seen plenty of folks removed from airplanes in a far less violent manner than the video here shows. Since the video starts after the security guard (based on the press statements not an actual police officer) arrives its hard to say how much verbal discussion there was but every time I've personally witnessed someone physically removed from a plane there was a very long discussion followed by an increasing level of physical force. Here it appears the guy went from 0 to 10 reacting almost as if the passenger had a weapon. I would have expected a much more scaled response.
See here:
and here
Both show a much more professional law enforcement response and force that is properly escalated. In fact, in my brief search, I couldn't find any video of a similar situation that escalated so quickly with so much force without the passenger fighting back.