Officer Pulls Gun On Passengers During Brawl At Miami Airport

Florida Man’s flight was delayed, he took the keys from an airport employee’s golf cart to detain the man, a brawl ensued and a responding officer pulled a gun on a group of fighting passengers. All in a day’s work at the Miami airport.

Cell phone video footage shows the incident, which occurred after 6 p.m. on Monday evening. The officer tried to restrain the primary assailant, as that man “charge[d] at the officer with his arms flailing.”

According to the man who captured the incident on video,

An unruly passenger on a flight to Santo Domingo was upset about something..I wasn’t sure if it was his class of travel, his check bag fees, a delay, something…He got into an altercation with a police officer, who eventually pulled his gun.

The incident occurred near gate H6, on a concourse serving mostly SkyTeam airlines along with a smattering of Star Alliance and unaligned Latin carriers. No injuries were reported. According to airport officials,

MIA is seeing record-high passenger numbers this winter travel season. Unfortunately, that passenger growth has come with a record-high increase nationwide in bad behavior as well, such as the incident this evening at MIA.

This is actually one of the tamer passenger incidents reported recently in South Florida, despite the huge potential for it to have escalated once a gun was pulled.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Good to hear this Miami airport police officer responded promptly, took control of the situation, and protected passengers from further injury.

  2. As a person who works with law enforcement agencies to reduce their risk, I’m shocked he didn’t pull a taser (and use it) instead of a firearm but it’s hard to tell from the footage what really happened. What he really needed is an Axom x2 or similar taser with multiple cartridges in that situation.

    All I do know is that the Miami airport management needs to revisit their usage of golf carts. It is one of the worst airports in the world for golf carts. It seems like every employee there has one. It’s very dangerous.

  3. DaninMCI, don’t be conclusory — watch the video and you’ll see why.

    The officer was the person being attacked — he was not simply breaking up an argument between two people. The officer was SWARMED by four to six individuals delivering body-blow punches and, as he freed himself, openly swinging punches. When he was swarmed, any one of the individuals could have easily taken his weapon, handcuffs, etc. Once free, he backed backed away and the individuals started to approach him again. ONLY THEN (when the approached him again) did the officer draw his weapon. Given the swarming nature of the individuals, use of a taser would likely have been ineffective against the group. To me, the officer acted appropriately given the circumstances.

  4. Some people are just the shallow end of the gene pool. Fist fights and physical altercations after reaching adulthood is just shameful and shows some people aren’t taught to effectively deal with conflict

  5. White supremacy in action! #ACAB! This was a mostly peaceful tantrum! Black folx are literally hunted down by the police on the concourses of our airports!

  6. He was aggravated about being late to a Black Lives Matter event. ‘I ain’t lettin’ no white po-leece get in my way’

  7. @Elias Thanks for showing the entire video. Puts things much more into perspective. Gary did not do proper research and the results are the comments we see above. #thoughtleader

    I think Gary owes his readers an updated post.

  8. Not sure what video Gary was watching. I saw a mob advancing on a cop and a guy repeatedly punching the cop. What happens if the mob gets on top of him and gets his gun? Do I think the cop could have handled the initial interaction differently? Yes absolutely and the situation could have probably been avoided all together, but even so these people behaved like frickin animals and they would probably have kept attacking him if he did not draw his weapon.

  9. @Bill. Did you watch the video that @Elias posted in the comments? It puts an entirely different perspective into the encounter. The officer actually attacked the man first.

  10. Stephen W., what makes you think the airline caused this incident ? How about the passenger caused this because he/she can’t control themselves. Maybe they always got a treat when they acted up.

  11. This is very sad. Why do people continue to resist arrest and escalate these situations? How many horrible events would have been prevented last year if we just stop and respect the law? Don’t resist, let them arrest you and be served your rights under due process. If that’s too tough try China or Russia where I am sure they will honor your civil rights….

  12. The video Elias posted certainly doesn’t make the police officer look good, but what was the guy thinking when he grabbed the officer’s arm? In general I am willing to accept that blacks might face worse treatment by the police than other races, but resisting arrest is just about the worst way to respond to such treatment.

  13. The cop pulled his gun in a crowded airport terminal. When cops shoot they empty their entire clips because their accuracy suffers. This incident could have ended badly for many innocent bystanders.

Comments are closed.