s0ssos

The point is that people lie. Regardless of gender or whatever. Sometimes nobody knows why.
That is why we do not just evacuate planes when someone yells 'bomb'
(oh wait, we do)

jdrtravel

No, if listening to the stories of our mothers, sisters, daughters, etc has taught us anything it's that we should believe women that this kind of thing happens ALL the time. It's up to the police and, if it gets that far, courts, to determine the facts. But given the literal **millennia** that women have spent not being believed, I think we can just let our first reaction be along the lines of "how awful!"

Like, when someone says they've just been attacked and hurt really badly, you don't start talking about it being "alleged" and questioning them, because that makes you a jerk. The first thing you do is show sympathy and that you care.

davie355

Hard disagree. No-Fly is an affront to humanity (restriction of free movement). Convicted assailants should be in prison, but any non-incarcerated citizen ought to be able to travel by air as a right, not a privilege.

TheHorta

ND76

I have no way of knowing for sure, but I am 99% certain that Delta cooperated with law enforcement back in the 1980s at BWI to have me stopped and questioned. I was traveling with my 22 month old daughter without my wife (she was traveling for business on her own job). I had to go to Orlando on short notice and had to take my daughter with me; the client's wife baby sat my daughter while I attended meetings. Anyhow, we flew back from MCO to BWI on an evening when there was a national alert that a man had kidnapped a little girl and had decided to use the commercial airlines as his getaway vehicle. When we got to BWI, the flight attendants asked me to stay seated until they brought her stroller up from the hold. We then got off the flight and went up the jetway, only to be met in the concourse by three uniformed members of the Maryland State Police (this was before the Maryland Transportation Authority Police took over policing the airport). One of the troopers was a female, whom I presume was there to take custody of my daughter. They questioned me for about 20 minutes, and I thought they were going to arrest me when I couldn't tell them my wife's exact whereabouts (I didn't know what hotel she was staying at). Finally, I remembered that I had my daughter's proof of birth issued by the DC government (she was born at George Washington University hospital), which was in the form of a card. I took that in order to prove that my daughter was under 2 years old so that I didn't have to have a separate ticket for her. The cops took the card, examined it for a minute, then radioed it in, and somehow it checked out, and they let us go.

It turned out that the guy they were looking for turned up 2,300 miles west of BWI at SMF; he ran from the police, and they filled him full of lead.

So, it would appear that Delta fully cooperated with the authorities when they thought that I was kidnapping my daughter.

ND76

Can't Delta invoke its right of private property and ban individuals from flying on it as long as it is done in a non-discriminatory fashion for cause?

davie355

Unlike sexual assault, kidnapping is a risk for which airports and airlines have elaborate operating procedures. TSA will ask border crossing-style questions of kids when they approach the ID checker. Flight attendants are trained to spot indicators of child trafficking.

DragonSoul

How does that work, the right to fly? If manned flight had never been invented, does one still have the right to fly?

There are plenty of ways to have "free movement" - walk, run, car, bus, train, boat, scooter. Limiting someone's ability to get on a plane does in no way infringe on their right to free movement.

wxman22

This happened more than a month ago.
I'd like to hear the rest of the story.

gooselee

And now, decades later, you'd think they would have gotten around to developing procedures and/or baseline training for how to deal with suspected physical or sexual assault.

Heck, most of my company works from behind laptops at home and we all still get training on this. It's pretty basic: if you have reason to believe something bad happened or is happening, call the authorities as quickly as possible.

I'd say a woman running down an airplane aisle saying "help me" because she was just groped qualifies as a reason to believe something happened. Immediate response should have been notifying the flight deck so they can notify the ground.

omaralt

absolutely not. we live in a society where "innocent until proven guilty" is followed. how many stories have we heard these days that turn out to be false? the waiter who said he wasnt tipped because he had an arabic name in a texas steakhouse (https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-44937372)? how many men have had their lives ruined because of false rape/sexual assault allegations; (duke lacrosse team: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b065e2e3d486f7), atlanta falcons player falsely accused and had his career ruined (False accuser of Brian Banks, Atlanta Falcons, ordered to pay $2.6M). so this happens on a regular basis. people lie all the time when they see some way of financial gain. so these events need to be immediately investigated and stories corroborated. but believing women (or anyone) all the time is a recipe for disaster and has led to the ruining of many peoples lives

jdrtravel

There is no man named in this story, I'm say focus on the person who is saying something awful happened to her.

omaralt

i'm simply responding to your statement that women should be believed all the time.

mules

I wondered how long it would take until the victim was suspected of lying...Really makes me ill.

Delta is not the court and jury. They should have contacted law enforcement and let the process begin.

The woman was seated in a middle seat. The other passenger can corroborate if she did indeed react and try to get out of the row in addition to anything she may have said.

omaralt

who blamed the victim? i didnt see anyone blame the victim; if somebody did please point it out

delta messed up big time; law enforcement should have been at the gate and taken statements.

however, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. unfortunately in cases like this many times, as jdrtravel pointed out, the victim is guilty simply on the account of one person. luckily thats not how the courts operate, but unfortunately many times the persons reputation has already been ruined