I guess I agree that there are 2 sides to every story. I am still wondering about the full story here. The police on the scene did not seem to believe that the officer acted disruptive or he would have been cited.

The story from the pilots side disputes the original contention of everyone that has been supporting the captain though. He was originally quoted as saying that in reviewing the paper work he found errors and then wanted to check the agents qualifications. In his statement that has just been released, the pilot says that he was prep the aircraft awaiting a new pull back time. At that point he has been given the paperwork saying a secret service agent is going to be on the plane, says no problem. The agent disembarks(unsure why). A curious flight attendent looks at the books he has left on board and gasp sees something she suspects is arabic. She is now nervous and goes to the pilot and says we have an arabic type of man on board. The pilot discovers that this is the armed LEO. It is only at that point that he now cares if the paperwork is filled out correctly. ie, when first told and given the paperwork he obviously could not care. So therefore the race of the agent was very important to the story, that was not originally admitted.

I also have real trouble with the report of the SOC managers position. He claims that he didn't know that the agent was arabic looking. Now how is that the case. Are we to really assume that the pilot did not say why he and the flight attendents were made suspicious (looks and arabic writing, I will even grant suspicious attitude. If every business man that is now frustrated and a little short with people for being late and made to switch planes etc is now suspicious. Lets be honest his attitude was suspicious because he looked arabic.) He asked for a copy of the terrorist watch list(which from all reports I have seen only have arabic looking people on it at this time.)

If the agent became verbally abusive, I would have expected that the police officer that suposedly witnessed this threatening behavior to have acted. I still believe that it is a criminal offense to interfere with a flight crew. I have read reports of people acting as the captain described being arrested. If the officers report verifies the captains comments, I would also expect that he will be dismissed from the presidential detail. I still am surprised that the elite of the secret service could lose his cool. Part of the training is dealing with hostile crowds. (people spitting at them, cussing, calling names and throwing things.) To fail to maintain cool in this situation would be a gross msitake if true, but for the captain to claim that race had nothing to do with this is a lie. For the SOC to not realize that the person being described either looked or was arabic is just not completely believable from the information in his statement as well. The way I actually read the first part of his statement is that he was pretty dismissive of the captain. And for all of the people that say that the specialness of his paperwork is paramount, the SOC said just have him redo it. It has also been reported that the original problem with the paperwork is that an American agent scratched out the original flight numbers and wrote the new ones over the top. So lets hear the "rest of the story".

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Robert