A United Airlines flight attendant was arrested at the Tampa airport on March 8, 2025 after a dispute on the employee shuttle from the parking lot to the terminal. Police body cam footage recently made public shows details from the incident where the crewmember tapped a Cayman Airways flight attendant on the shoulder and tried to capture her ID badge details after getting angry about her loud phone call.
And the incident comes down to: “a tap is nothing” versus “keep your hands to yourself.”
Two Flight Attendants Bicker On The Bus
The conflict started at the employee bus stop. The Cayman Airways crew member is on a phone call with her uncle. She says she’s speaking French and gets told her voice is annoying. She says the United flight attendant approaches and tells her, in blunt terms, to stop (“close your mouth”).
The interaction escalates quickly into a personal accusation: she says she challenged why he was bothering her and accused him of racism.
They both got on the bus. The Cayman Airways crew member says he tapped her shoulder, and she says he also reached for or manipulated her ID badge (she frames it as him trying to grab it and take photos or video of it). She says he threatened to make sure she got fired, and that he was documenting her.
After the bus drops them off, she says he kept following her through the airport, as far as the “Marriott” area, where he was asking around for her supervisor’s information.
The United flight attendant’s story is that he was trying to stop someone from yelling on the phone in the bus shelter and on the bus. He says she repeatedly called him racist, cursed at him, and flipped him off. He admits he followed her after arriving because he wanted to identify her and report her behavior. He acknowledges touching her shoulder, which he says was as an attempt to get her attention and ask her to stop.
Officers decided to arrest the United flight attendant for “simple battery,” telling him it’ll be a relatively quick “release on recognizance” with a court date. The United flight attendant is supposed to be on a plane and asks how long it will take. They tell him he won’t be boarding that flight.
Florida’s battery statute is written broadly. It doesn’t require injury. It doesn’t require a strike. It covers intentional, unwanted contact. And police can arrest for it, without a warrant on probable cause, even as a misdemeanor they did not witness.
Social media reaction is predictable:
- most people think the arrest an absurd waste of resources.
“The only battery here is the lithium one in his phone.”
“If tapping someone on the shoulder is battery, I’m a hardened criminal.”
- a smaller group says the lesson here is what we learned in kindergarten — keep your hands to yourself.
“I hate speakerphone people but don’t touch strangers”
“unwanted touch is unwanted touch”
Both are true at the same time. “I just tapped her shoulder” is not a defense to battery in Florida, it’s a confession. At the same time, laws written for real violence get used for petty conflicts.
(HT: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)
So as foolish as this sounds this is how it is. In California you are not allowed to to touch anyone without permission from the other. Sounds like some thing never comes about right? A lady has taken to court the man who saved her life. She was texting and walking across the street he grabbed her since a car was about to hit her. She is suing and the courts took up the case. We will see the results in the new year.
Another case that happened to myself. I was departing a cruise and there were so many buses for transferring to LAX that I tapped a worker. She flipped out said I assaulted her. Thankfully the cop that was standing right there settled the matter.
The lesson don’t touch anyone and even if you do to save a life you could be in some trouble.
Guy is a self-entitled jerk and could have gotten away with it if he just let it drop and gotten on his on flight, but no, he has to stalk and threaten the lady. He deserves some consequences. Florida law is a little extreme here, but so was he. His airline should sanction him. I am glad I was not on his flight. Is he going to tell everyone on the plane they can’t talk because he has a headache? Deal with it dude. This is America. We have free speech here.
Not to downplay actual violence, but, a mere shoulder tap should not be considered battery. Sounds like malicious prosecution if it leads to actual charges. Then again, corruption is becoming so widespread, it wouldn’t be surprising for influential people to misuse such charges to go after their opponents, competitors, and perceived enemies. We should shun all of this.
@JohnSF you don’t have free speech in the USA since the current President took up office.
Kimmel to give but one high profile example
I don’t think the prosecutor will take the case. If this goes to a jury it will rightly get laughed out of court. Events like this show why police and prosecutor discretion and jury nullification are important bulwarks against egregiously bad statutes like this one. Context is key. In my opinion this is analogous to a flight attendant lightly tapping a passenger on the shoulder to wake them up or to get them to prepare for landing. That should never be criminal since it is directly (unless done maliciously) in the scope of their employment duties. Keeping the bus quiet also seems to be part of a flight attendant’s reasonable responsibilities. The law should be rewritten for clarity and this case should be thrown out for unreasonableness by the prosecutor or jury.
@Steven – My thoughts exactly. Any reasonable prosecutor will drop this one like a hot potato. Also, it sounds as if the woman talking on the phone fully deserved a reprimand. I and many others are sick and tired of people being loud and obnoxious in shared public spaces, be it a phone call or a video being played on speakers without headphones. People who engage in such behavior deserve negative consequences. (And race has NOTHING to do with it.) I am almost tempted to start a GoFundMe for the UA flight attendant.
Based on what I’m seeing here, the DA should take one look at the charge and tell the arresting officer that he needs better hobbies.
The issue is with the statute – it sounds like, as written, if you try to push past someone who isn’t paying attention to get off a bus (or to get them to move along in line, or any of a hundred other situations), you could be charged with battery. When dealing with someone who is hard of hearing, this seems to create a potentially impossible situation where it might be impossible to get their attention without committing a crime.
The other lesson here seems to be “if the cops are called, just refuse to say anything”, and I don’t think that’s a message the police want to have sent (which is all the more reason that the case should be thrown out – pressing charges like this seems to honestly be contrary to the public interest).
These cops are idiots and the loud FaceTimer is a drama queen who is obviously being coached by her supervisor. I once had a flight attendant wake me for landing in a similar manner (shoulder touch). Should I have demanded that law enforcement be summoned and that the flight attendant be charged with a crime? Again, these cops are idiots and the very type of stupids that I do not want making any decisions or carrying guns. I feel bad for this flight attendant and if I ever run across him (as I’m on United a lot) I’ll tell him that.
And I’m 1,000,000% sure if a passenger tapped him on the shoulder and try to take a picture of his badge he will have them put under a jail! It goes both ways, keep your hands to yourself.
The days of being able to play the race card for being an inconsiderate ahole in public are over. Hope this guy takes it to a jury if the DA even moves the case forward. Luckily the governor removed the previous Hillsborough county DA so hopefully this nonsense is over by now.
The big issue here is that there are witnesses who observed what happened, and it doesn’t match his story
I thought diversity and multiculturism was making America great again.
I remember relocating from one metro area in the North, where touching the shoulder was verboten, to a metro region in the South, where I was touched on the shoulder or arm on daily basis, and often several times a day. And this was by supposedly professionals in an office setting.
I remember being shocked and alarmed, as many times it seemed borderline sexual; but, as a daily gym-goer, I was never fearful.
So, assault? No. Battery? Absolutely, except for DEI multi-culturism and diversity–the exceptions that swallow the rule.
I think this maybe a cultural thing. The Copa F/A said English is a second language. Maybe it is acceptable in her home country to use a speaker phone close to others but is considered rude in the US.
@kimmiea — Well, if they actually prosecute, then those witnesses can share what they witnessed to a jury, yet, at the end of the day, it just seems like tired, frustrated humans arguing with each other over nothing.
@Mike Hunt — Yeah, highly doubt this goes anywhere, other than fodder for blogs like Gary, Ben, and Matt, and social media faux-outrage. While not necessarily ‘racist’ the ‘speaking French loudly’ angle is interesting. Like, is that xenophobia or just calling out bad manners. Is any of that a crime? Naw, not really, but uncool nonetheless. Like, try not to annoy your fellow passengers, on a plane or a bus; also, try not to escalate needlessly. *sigh*
Using speaker-phones should be banned in public EVERYWHERE.