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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.