A passenger walked up to a gate agent at Washington Dulles airport United Airlines gate D12 – apparently planning to board while the previous flight was deplaning – saying things like “who wants it first?” and then punched the agent hard enough to knock him down.
Angry guy at Dulles airport tries to get on a fully booked plane and knocks out the flight agent. Lol #nova #dullesairport pic.twitter.com/zNvJ1N3I4r
— Ama Deisel (@amar3455) March 13, 2025
The reportedly well-liked, kind gate agent was taken away on a stretcher and hospitalized. The passenger was arrested on the spot. The assailant is presumably being added to United’s list of banned passengers. It’s unclear whether he was intoxicated, as some have reported, and what exactly triggered him.
(HT: H.G.)
Ain’t ‘merica great? 3rd world! It was a good run but 250 years was the cap.
I dont understand – he was trying to get on a fully booked flight?
But the flight is deplaning – was *that* flight fully booked and he’s trying to get on it?
Clearly need some more information here.
Battery. Charge him. Ban him. Due process. Likely, convict. Sentence. Serve time, pay fines. Done.
Ok, so above was the ‘criminal’ case. Here’s the civil. Sue him. Trial. Settle, or pay up. Done.
This isn’t hard. This is our current system. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we got. No, vigilantism is not the answer. Yes, it requires patience. Ultimately, it should deter this bad behavior. Yes, that there is a video with such vividly clear evidence is extremely beneficial to the prosecution, civil litigators.
Also, good news typical foes, this has nothing to do with race. So, no ‘culture war’ distractions here. Unless, someone is not straight, or they wore a pin of some kind, then please, by all means, make this about that, instead of focusing on what really is at issue–violence, a crime. Let’s freakin’ go.
I really have to wonder about what is it today that society can act the way this guy does without even thinking about it. Is it strictly alcohol or other forces at play? Frankly I think they should just eliminate serving alcohol at the airport altogether or at least have a two-drink airport wide max.
If he was on the Fairfax County side of the airport, he will walk away scott free. Woke DA Steve Descano does not prosecute criminals.
Keep treating people like animals at the airport then be surprised when the act like animals.
Looks like a typical United flight to me.
Definitely a Trump supporter
Yeah, he should be banned from all the airlines, not just United.
And yeah, he deserves assault charges, heavy fines, some jail time, and personal law suits.
What he did, you cannot do. That harms the rest of us by his sad example.
Hmmmm…is this video AI? Notice how the First Officer behind the gate agent doesn’t even look at or instinctively try to catch the agent as he is going down. Additionally none of the passengers even look towards the downed agent. I don’t doubt something happened but me thinks the video is a fake!
Picard
Gary, the two most recent posts both feature 1990 replying *to himself* multiple times. He seems to think that this is his blog, not yours.
His incessant bloviating on *every topic* while arrogantly @-ing other posters is ruining the reader experience. You may get a million clicks a day by him alone, but it’s time for the ban hammer.
Many of these incidents at airports and on airplanes involve intoxicated travelers. What can be done to regulate airports so that (1) a passenger cannot pass through TSA checkpoints without first being screened for sobriety and (2) alcoholic beverages sold in secured airport concourses are subject to an airport security tax and are limited to one beverage per customer? Or, in the alternative, simply ban the sale of alcoholic beverages in secured airport concourses.
Life time ban from all airlines would not be punishment enough. Make him work, without pay, on the tarmac in the toilet cleaning truck for a month.
1990 you are naive.
The cost to sue this penniless mongo (no offense to the late Alex Karras) is at the expense of the gate agent. He would have to spend thousands of dollars and wait years for what a pyrrhic victory?
It it was a pit bull he would already have been euthanized.
Tell us who you voted for without telling us!! MAGOT
Well, that’s one way to lose your TSA pre check & global entry for life!
“The reportedly well-liked, kind gate agent was taken away on a stretcher and hospitalized. The passenger was arrested on the spot.” Source??
ZERO tolerance for even the slightest misbehavior on or near an airplane — that will go eight miles up at 80% the speed of sound in a narrow tube. As a lesson to anyone who might even think of physical behavior — banned for life.
Quit selling booze at airports and on planes, and a lot of this stops.
When the clown is done serving his sentence his mode of transportation will be Greyhound, that is until they also ban him.
I wonder if that would count as interfering with a flight crew (some gate agents are also F/As). That would mean the perp could be facing 20 years in the pokey.
@paul — No, not naive, at all.
Criminal case is clear cut–you cannot deny that.
In a civil battery case, damages typically aim to compensate the injured party for their losses, including medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering, with potential for punitive damages in egregious cases.
Many personal injury lawyers offer free consultations and work on a contingency fee basis, meaning you don’t pay unless they win your case.
Qualified legal counsel can investigate and advise the agent on whether this is financially viable, the relative time frame, and likelihood of success, but still, there are indeed no guarantees.
Sure, maybe the ‘perp’ has ‘no’ money–or maybe, more likely, he does actually have deeper pockets than one might think. Maybe he has an insurance policy, or equity in a home and/or business. Why would you give up so easily here? Like, are you literally the perp’s attorney trying to sway public opinion? Just sayin’, it’s an odd take you have, sir, is all.
If you still disagree, then please, do tell us how you’ve had bad experiences with ineffective counsel. We can do a Friars-style ‘roast’ on how awful the bad lawyers can be. I’ll be the first to throw stones.
A little too convenient that someone pulled up their camera just as he walked up. If they knew, why didn’t they stop him?
@Spuwho — If the person taking the video was just a bystander, then they have no obligation to stop him or insert themselves in anyway–in fact, they they did, they could open themselves up to liability. The saying goes ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’
We don’t know the full story–perhaps, the person taking the video was with the person committing the crime. If so, the video evidence most certainly does not help the perpetrator, so… convenient, and if staged, even worse for the prep! Motivation. Intent. Guys, the criminal case is clear. And if that goes well, civil is a lot easier, too, though, there are rules to prevent bias, if it goes to jury trial, etc.
That was my first thought but behavior has declined since Covid. I’m in total agreement w/ Tom M. No time or room for bad behavior on an aircraft. One strike, you’re out!
*if they (not ‘they they’)
Sheesh, ‘autocorrect’ is like an HR Department: Not your friend.
On a United flight ✈️ somewhere over Texas a flight attendant slapped my wife’s hand as she touched a bag of pretzels on his cart and was sarcastic about it. The gate agent didn’t deserve to punch….but I get it. I emailed United…no response.
Five years in prison and put on a permanent no fly list. Why does our country feel the need to feel sorry for these lowlifes and their supposedly “mental health issues.” They can work them out behind bars.
@George N Romey — Add the words ‘due process’ and sounds fine by me.
It’s an obscure reference, but when folks such as yourself are so upset by these reasonably upsetting incidents that you feel the need to rush to sentencing, I cannot help by think of the fictional character, Earl of Lemongrab, from the animated children’s television program, Adventure Time, who abuses his power and often threatens his subjects with: “Thirty days in the dungeon! Three hours dungeon! Twelve years dungeon. All of you. Dungeon. Seven years, no trials. One million years dungeon!” If you know, you know.
@L737, where you at? Please tell me this is not lost on you at least. It’s gold, if you get it.
Something similar happened to an elderly man outside a supermarket. …punched for no reason. It was witnessed and the police came but not much was done. The punching man was arrested and released. He didn’t appear in court for a hearing. Nothing else was done.
Probably a MAGA
What would be great is to take this video and make it part of the videos for all airlines we watch preflight on do’s and don’ts and finish with, “if you do this, you get banned for life from all airlines”.
I bet he’s a Trump supporter…
@derek — Well, a supermarket is not the secured area of an airport; and, a witness is not the same as a literal video. While I’m sure the victim in that case deserved justice, the gate agent and airline in this incident may have a better chance. For all our sake as members of the traveling public, we should hope this perpetrators is charged and prosecuted to the full extent of the law with due process—we can and should deter copy-cats.
So random hope the GA is okay…
@1990 – HA YES that’s not a gold reference, that’s platinum! Who could forget that shrill voice, what a guy. Unacceptableeeeeeeeee
It’s ALWAYS because of alcohol! Stop selling it at the airport and in the air! There is absolutely zero need for alcohol ANYWHERE NEAR A PLANE! We are all sharing an aluminum coke can flying at 30,000 feet at 200+ mph. If you can’t handle that, DRIVE!
The gate agent has a glass jaw and apparently went to the NBA/Lebron James school of flopping.
Ban this asshole from all airlines forever.
Gate agent, sue him for everything you can.
NO MERCY
One Commenter above stated the video appears to be AI generated and fake. Please be informed and don’t assume everything you see online is fake.
It is real!
And confirmed by the employees Union
WASHINGTON, March 14, 2025 – Brian Bryant, International President of the 600,000-member IAM Union, and Richie Johnsen, IAM Air Transport Territory General Vice President, issued the following statement demanding stronger protections for airline customer service representatives following a violent assault on a United Airlines employee/IAM Union member at Washington Dulles International Airport yesterday:
What coolio said, 1990 is an idiot.
@L737 — Phew! Thank goodness. You are indeed ‘a man of culture’, through and through. All this excitement as made me hungry… for one of Jake’s ‘Everything Burritos’. And, back to this post, yes, I would say the perpetrator was…. UNACCEPTABLE!!! (gotta bring it full-circle)
This type of disgusting behavior is allowed to continue bc cowards like this passenger are simply given a slap on the wrist.
This POS deserves an automatic 3 years in jail sentence, 250K fine, a ban from flying on any airline for 5 years (he belongs at Greyhound) and mandatory anger management classes for 5 years. Additionally, the employee should sue him for everything he can get.
Maybe then it will keep others from acting stupid.
Being under the influence of alcohol is no excuse for his behavior, nobody forced him to drink
“… what triggered him…”
Way to make it SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT this sociopath battered an unaware GA.
There’s NOTHING that justifies turning a verbal discussion into a battering incident short of spech inciteful to violence. (See e.e. SCOTUS decisions on previous 1st Am challenges.)
TO suggest we don’t know “what triggered him” is to sugges his punching the GA to the ground can be justified/rationalized because the poor little guy “was triggered.”
You need to take another look around. If the GA was a pregnant woman would you still take this insipid idea that the poor innocent guy who hit her in the stmoach and knocked her and her unborn baby to the ground “may have been triggered” so it’s all good. Give him free counseling and send the police home?
Disgusting.
Worse than MAGA spam.
@Coolio — Did you rename yourself? @OneTrippe, is that you?
@mike s — Same to you, sir. I thought your name was @Mike P, or was it @Andy S?
Fellas, you can engage or ignore. It is indeed Gary’s blog, and he’s a gracious host. Demanding that the host ‘ban’ or ‘mute’ those you don’t like or don’t agree with is ‘weak.’ Aren’t you the folks that were against ‘cancel culture’–what changed? When did ‘free speech’ start to offend you? Or was it always that way, you just wanted to silence your opponents instead of actually debating on substance. Hmm. Like, where’s your ‘take’ on the topic at hand? I’ve been sharing my thoughts. Try sharing your own for a change, instead of just attacking your fellow commenters.
@Ehud Gavron — I’m with you, sir. Regardless of instigation or motivation, the alleged perpetrator caused real harm–such blatant violence within a secured area against an airline agent should be a strict liability (intent doesn’t really matter). Still, let’s afford him his due process in accordance with the law.
People are becoming crazier every day. It seems that almost daily some crazy person goes berserk at the airport or on a plane.
At least my fellow jerks flying with me don’t have guns, unlike the highways
probably had his guitar broken by some other united idiot
From my experience with airline employees…. They have been giving a little power and they are worst than cops when it comes to abuse of powers. I read about people in their seats being force to move, airline employees taking seats , and much more abuse from old people trying to support a family on a single person’s job. So , i think that punch may have been late in coming. And to the gate person , Life is a Mirror….You deserved that punch…. Think of all the peoples day that You have screwed up…