Saying it's a lie doesn't have any basis at this point.
The agent / supervisor could have (and by procedure should have) taken the word of the officer regarding 'struck the officer'.
What does the police report say?
And watching the video it's possible during the 3 - 5 seconds he's screaming and the officer is trying to pull him out Dao hit, grabbed or pushed toward the officer. Even the slightest touch gets police up in arms which is a whole other discussion beyond this incident. It's all obscured from the video vantage point by the officer's bodies, and also obscured from anyone in the aisle.
I can see the officer putting something like that in a writeup given how brutally sensitive officers are to any sort of movement during an arrest or simply to CYA when the gate agent / supervisor sees a bleeding man being pulled off.
The crime in the public interest is that the police union prevents the department from releasing their names so we can do some background check on the officer's history.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/uni...tuation-again/
"As part of our review, two additional officers have been placed on administrative leave until further notice. The employees’ collective bargaining agreement prohibits the CDA from releasing their names at this time."
What fun overly powerful unions are.
The communication problem by Oscar's team was including the unverified incident writeup details in the employee communique so quickly - though I guess any employee could pull them up in the reservation record. And could have taken the police report at face value.
There should have been a press conference with United and the Chicago PD jointly early on.