The officer who dragged Dr Dao from his seat after he refused to leave an overbooked United Airlines flight is now suing the airline.
The BBC reports that an officer who lost his job after dragging Dr Dao from an overbooked United Airliens flight is now suing the airline.
James Long had lost his job after being one of several officers who forcibly removed the 69-year-old Vietnamese-American from his seat after he refused to leave his seat from the overbooked flight.
The airline had asked several randomly selected passengers who were already boarded on a flight from Chicago to Louisville to disembark from the plane because too many tickets were sold. When Dr Dao refused to leave, United called in airport officials who forcibly removed the him from the plane.
Footage of the incident quickly spread online, shocking the internet. Dr Dao suffered concussion, a broken nose and lost two front teeth in the incident. He reached a settlement with United but the sum is undisclosed.
Long was fired in August 2017 following a disciplinary investigation. He has since filed a lawsuit against the airline, the city, Chicago’s Department of Aviation (CDA) and its commissioner.
According to the former security officer the CDA did not train him to deal with the situation. He believes United Airlines should have known that removing a passenger would “require the use of physical force”.
“But for the CDA’s negligence and failure to train (Long) how to respond to an escalating situation with an airline passenger, (he) would not have acted in the manner he did, which resulted in his termination,” the lawsuit says.
Long also claims that he was defamed by Chicago’s aviation chief Ginger Evans after the incident. Accordign to the claimant, her statements had “deliberate and intentionally misleading omissions with the direct intention to harm”.
Evans and the CDa allegedly “acted with malice and with the intention to harm, and recklessly disregarded (Long’s) rights and the consequences that may result to him by failing to investigate the truth of Defendant Evans’s oral and written statements about Long”.
The United Airlines incident had the world talking last year. Whilst CEO Oscar Munoz claimed Dr Dao was a “disruptive” and “belligerent” passenger, Star Trek actor John Cho condemned the airline, drawing a link between the incident and the “environment Trump has created”.
Star Wars Rogue One actor Donnie Yen slammed the airline too, saying, “. “No one should be treated this way. This is unacceptable and need to be condemn. United was never my choice of airline, now they are black listed.” The story even caused controversy across Chinese social media.
