A retired police officer and his wife have filed a federal lawsuit against American Airlines, alleging that they were unjustly singled out for human trafficking investigation during their honeymoon flight from Phoenix to Miami. The incident took place on September 13, 2022.
Anthony Williams, 63, a Black retired law enforcement officer, and his white wife, 34-year-old Katsiaryna Shasholka, were traveling on American Airlines flight 2408. Another passenger reportedly became suspicious simply because the couple was interracial. According to the lawsuit, that passenger assumed Shasholka was being transported against her will and alerted the cabin crew.
Court documents allege the flight attendants made no effort to speak with Williams or Shasholka to clarify the situation. Instead, they relayed the accusation to the captain who alerted authorities. The newlyweds were instructed to remain seated on arrival in Miami as everyone else deplaned. They were escorted off the aircraft and interrogated by Miami-Dade police officers. They claim to have been humiliated and to continue suffering from sleeplessness, anxiety, and panic attacks.
The case highlights how airline and hotel employees are taught to use their prejudices to spot and report human trafficking, and this often works out badly. Flight attendants are told they need to be on the lookout, and you have to sympathize with the position that puts them in. Imagine if they didn’t say something when they could have stopped a bad situation? That would haunt them. So better to raise the accusation or flag innocent people for law enforcement to sort out. And that gives you situations like,
- An African American social service worker was traveling with a white baby and accused of kidnapping by an American Airlines flight attendant as a result. Delta accused grandparents of trafficking their mixed-race grandson.
- Armed Port Authority police boarded an American Airlines plane at New York JFK because a flight attendant saw an Asian American woman follow her hispanic husband to the lavatory (he was feeling unwell) and saw that they shared an orange juice. The flight attendant called for a sex trafficking investigation. It found their drivers licenses displayed the same home address because they were married, just different races. American accused a black musician of trafficking his mixed-race kids, too.
- Cindy McCain once fabricated a story about catching a toddler being trafficked at the Phoenix airport.
- Southwest Airlines demanded to see Facebook posts when a white mother checked in with her mixed-race son, claiming this was ‘federal law’.
This family is on a holiday weekend adventure to support @Kenzie4bs at @usabasketball U18 trials. 💙💛🐻 pic.twitter.com/cbAcRdKyhJ
— Lindsay Gottlieb (@CalCoachG) May 26, 2018
Hotel staff, too, are trained by the Department of Homeland Security to report guests with too many used condoms in the trash, as well as:
- frequent use of the “Do Not Disturb” sign (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
- guests who avert their eyes or don’t make eye contact (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
- people with “lower quality clothing than companions” (no one ever accused me of fashion)
- people who have “suspicious tattoos” (which just means you’re from Austin or Portland)
- having multiple computers, cell phones, and other technology (you’re a blogger)
- “presence of photography equipment” (you’re a blogger)
- refusal of cleaning services for multiple days (you ‘made a green choice’ or ‘fear Covid’)
- rooms paid for with cash or a rechargeable credit card (you have to unload your gift card purchases somehow)
- guests with few personal possessions (you refuse to check a bag because you’re a frequent traveler)
See something, say something, when you’re encouraging amateurs to do it, leads to so many false positives that real cases of sex trafficking seem likely to get less attention. Employees think they are ‘trained’ when they’re really using their prejudices – often, though not always, involving mixed race customers.
(HT: GUWonder)
You want to marry someone half your age, you deal with the consequences.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The AA FA should have reported the woman for possible elder abuse and trying to defraud the retired man.
Wishing Mr. Williams the best in his suit; hopefully he gets a decent payout for his troubles.
Cases like these detract from the actual trafficking, which should be investigated, prosecuted.
Nobody has a right to not be interrogated in an airport. Frivolous lawsuit and transparent money grab.
OMG! Have these flight attendants ever actually caught real traffickers? These stories are just crazy!!
Suing and playing the race card how typical. Doubt they will win unless AA pays something for it to go away as a nuisance. A passenger reported a concern to a FA who relayed it to the captain. No way they are going to confront the couple on the flight. Then They were questioned and let go. No harm no foul. If an airline ignored such a warning and there was a case of trafficking that is way worse than a little embarrassment
BTW a 34 year old woman with a 63 year old man, regardless of race, is creepy
A schwing and a-miss! Meanwhile AA has willfully trafficked how many hundreds, if not thousands of illegal immigrants over the last four years on tickets bought by NGO’s and with other gov’t funds? Some FA’s raised the bullsh*t flag and were ignored or told to stay in their aisle (lane). So maybe these folks will get a nice settlement for AA’s stupidity.
“Imagine if they didn’t say something when they could have stopped a bad situation? ”
Has this ever happened? Have they ever intercepted a trafficking situation?> How many times? There are lots of false positives, as you illustrated.
It may be better to NOT have untrained amateurs as people-trafficking police.
What may be the best way of approaching this is something my wife saw in Atlantic City. In the women’s restrooms there were numerous signs giving a number to call if one was being trafficked. If the airlines put something like that in the lavatories and added that cabin crew members would protect anyone who asked for help maybe a few people would come forward. But expecting amateurs to identify victims seems almost like asking bank customers to catch potential robbers. That would not end well.
“BTW a 34 year old woman with a 63 year old man, regardless of race, is creepy”
Not if you’re the dude.
That creature ain’t White.
“If you see something, say something” is one of the worst phrases in modern life, along with the concept of “zero tolerance”. The FA union should be up in arms about the position they’re in and they should reject all calls by law enforcement to work for them for free without training, pay and benefits. Especially training.
What age difference is not creepy, 24 years?
I guess the fact nobody wants to travel with me is a plus here.
I would like for one of these lawsuits to go to trial and have a very large award. After that maybe the airlines would train their employees correctly and this stupidity wouldn’t happen.
@Dave W.
‘One is the loneliest number…’ yet, the ‘1’ in a 1-2-1 or 1-2 seat configuration is kind of the best, isn’t it?
Like, sure, some prefer to sit beside their partner, family, or friend, BUT… having both the window and the aisle… that simply cannot be beat.
Also, sure, less false accusations of human trafficking is… a plus!
This just happened to my white husband and my black daughter. This past week my daughter was going back to school and my husband took her to the gate. Because they were interracial someone called the police on them. I actually also wondered how often people call on interracial groups for trafficking. When in actuality, most trafficking probably happens within same racial groups traveling together. It was embarrassing that my husband and daughter were singled out that way. And it is racist.
A passenger who was told to stay in their seat upon arrival at the gate could, at some risk, simply ignore the instructions and leave. It would then be up to the airline crew to decide what to do in response from nothing all the way to attempting to restrain them physically.,
14 CFR 121.580 says that “No person may assault, threaten, intimidate, or interfere with a crewmember in the performance of the crewmember’s duties aboard an aircraft being operated under this part.” The operative words in this case would be “interfere with the crew member in the performance of the crewmember’s duties.” Since the crewmember’s duties arguably to not include looking for human trafficking, a case could be made that passenger was not interfering with their duties and was therefore within their rights to ignore these particular instructions.
While there is generally little to no recourse against individuals who report behavior to authorities, even if the person is motivated by racist beliefs, acting, even in good faith, under the cover of authority is an entirely different matter. That’s why the language of 121.580 includes the language “in the performance of the crewmember’s duties.” If you aren’t interfering or whatever instructions you are being given are beyond the scope of their duties, then you aren’t violating the statute.
Of course until it’s tested in court and held that forbidding a passenger to leave an airplane is outside their duties the risk is that a court might take the opposite view. But giving crewmembers the right hold passengers onboard essentially at will merely by invoking that they, a private citizen, think the person might be doing something for which there is no real evidence raising all kinds of questions.
Frankly I can’t imagine why a crewmember would give a command to remain onboard or why an airline would permit let along encourage their employees to so . Just have them report whatever they like over the radio, then as the passengers deplane let the police deal with it however they see fit.
Once Trump outlaws interracial marriage, this will be a non-issue.
AC wrote…
‘BTW a 34 year old woman with a 63 year old man, regardless of race, is creepy’
Are you a moron? What if they are coworkers, friends, or related?
Stupid chimpanzee.
Flight attendants should not say anything, period. If you see something, shut up and pour the drinks, and if you don’t see something, shut up and pour the drinks.
Cindy McCain fabricates a lot of stuff, including their being a risk of famine in Gaza when there is literally more food being brought in there everyday than almost any place in Africa or the Middle East.
BTW a 34 year old woman with a 63 year old man, regardless of race, is creepy
To you maybe. How about you mind your own damn business? Who are you to judge?
Wow — why would the FA not just strike up a conversation with the couple? “Hi, how are you guys doing? Traveling together? Vacation?” More likely the FA would have received a compliment for being friendly and engaging than a complaint about stupid profiling stereotypes.
Completely off topic and strictly for your entertainment dollar but given the comments regarding the age difference: There is a “Creepy” test for age differences. Take the age of the older person, divide it in half and add 7 years. If they’re still older than the younger person, it’s kinda creepy. Based on the Creepy test, a 63-year-old man with a 34-year-old woman is kinda creepy.
Sorry old men, but that’s official.
I’m much older now but I’m so grateful Cindy McCain saved me. Thank you auntie Cindy!
“BTW a 34 year old woman with a 63 year old man, regardless of race, is creepy”
That’s called ageism (that poster’s response). Why do you care? If they’re happy, leave them alone FFS!
Besides, have you seen her 34-year old male choices lately? Mental age of 12 and woke. I don’t blame her if she wants a mature man.
Old man, Young woman. Looks like trafficking to me. Y’all too comfortable with grown men picking out babies in nurseries. Which is effectively what that cop did when he was 29.
It’s hard out there being a pimp.
@Ted: Half the older person’s age+7. This seems to work pretty well, and would put 34 a tad young.
Exception: If you’re an A-list Actor, no older than 25.
Seriously though, seems like this could have been avoided with a little benign questioning from the FA.
What a ridiculous scenario!! Deplaning everyone but them. How humiliating. I hope they get a bundle. Of the 100’s of different ways to have handled this better, those morons chose humiliation and acting before thinking.
It’s not that difficfult with some training and/or natural intuition to suss out the facts of the situation. .Airlines and authorities need to establish policy and procedures for something like this if they are going to depend on flight crews to be alert for human trafficking. If people are stupid . . . give them an easy to follow procedure.
I have to admit some of the comments, besides being judgmental about the age gap, were hilarious.
“Anthony Williams, 63, a Black retired law enforcement officer, and his white wife, 34-year-old Katsiaryna Shasholka,”
I’m also interracially married, some noise from barking dogs comes with the territory. Same if you’re older but fit, not subject to other people’s expectations regarding politeness/weakness ratio, an obvious (accent, manner) Southerner, etc.
Here’s my question: “Anthony Williams, 63, a Black retired law enforcement officer, and his white wife, 34-year-old Katsiaryna Shasholka” Capitalizing one race but not the other? Fix your problem, I don’t care to hear what it is.
This will change once it costs the airlines enough money and bad PR. HT is a serious issue, and and should be investigated by professionals, not airline employees or hotel front desk staff, real traffickers most certainly wouldn’t be flying American airlines with all their incessant delays and cancellations.
Gary recycles this same thing every few months. He evidently does not care that human trafficking exists or that a false positive makes for a bit of inconvenience, while a false negative can make for many years of servitude. In previous situations I’ve given links to cases where alert airline personnel have rescued victims. But those don’t usually get publicity to protect the privacy of the victims, while if someone puts something on social media to complain about answering a few questions, Gary trumpets it to the world again and again and again.
Hate to school Uncle Jeff, but after the Civil War it was Democrats who took power in the South during “Redemption” and reenacted and enforced the majority of anti-miscegenation laws. While several Presidents held various opinions on miscegenation, it was Woodrew Wilson, a Democrat, who supported the passage of a bill to make interracial marriage a felony in the District of Columbia. Wilson was the last President to try to outlaw interracial marriage anywhere in the United States as far as I have been able to discover.
He wasn’t trafficking her
Her bought her online from Russia
Reading these comments man. You would thing the fabricated polarization by politicians would be transparent, but for many here it’s obviously not. Keep parroting the “immigrant bad” thing while being distracted
A 63 year old man with a 34 year old? Nicely done sir. Good for you.
I once had to go to court for my airline when a man sued us saying the embarrassment suffered by a comment my agent made (while in the breakroom, they were sitting by the door sulking over refusing to pay a bag fee) about the age of his wife caused him to be unable to get hard enough to consummate their marriage on their honeymoon. Props to my customer service manager who said on the stand that if he was complaining about paying $50 for his bag you’d have thought maybe he didn’t have it as he’d spent it on a blue pill.
To each their own. Flight attendants are encouraged to report their or other flyer concerns but then you have Karens that can’t get over the fact that some old dude might get some young chick.
As a retired police officer, he should THANK them for being vigilant. “See something, say something”
Everyone, it is not up to FA to find the truth or ask simple questions. They have a complain from a Karen, they pass it to the police. if the lady is being traffic for real, would she tell the flight crew even if not in front of him but on the same plane and could cause a scene ? FA cannot provide security for her until she is with Police. There is nothing wrong here. Just someone want to get money from airline. Even if it is not on an airline, in a mall …if someone think a person is kidnapped, they call the police instead of investigate themselves and put everyone at risk.
Russian bride 30 years younger than the retired cop… Perfectly normal, lol.
Hard believe how this minor experience traumatized a retired cop.
This sounds like a money grab lawsuit. Hopefully it will be tossed, much like the ridiculous second careers of this grifting duo.
Not only is there a considerable age difference between them, but the woman’s last name suggests she is Belarusian. I’m not minimizing actual racist incidents, but I suspect this is more than just a black and white issue, especially since a passenger, flight attendant and airline pilot all took action.
The 63-year old doesn’t seem to look much older than a lot of 20-70 year old guys who don’t eat and exercise properly and thus look older or more sloppy because of it.
What about your new President…..I believe that age difference is closer to 30 yrs!!! And, she is an immigrant!
Oh, and he’s not a retired cop, he’s a convicted felon. Hmmmm.
@AlohaDaveKennedy
Cool. Now look up how and when the parties changed ideologies
The Democratic party of the civil war is LITERALLY the Republican party of today
What a mook
Hopefully the identity of the complaining passenger will come out in discovery, have to testify in court, have their identity all over the internet.
The accusing passenger is listed in the complaint with a last name of Salles. I was able to download an archival pdf copy of the complaint for free.
Honestly, the only thing that will put a stop to this nonsense is a lawsuit with a high enough pay out that airlines rethink this insanity. Statistically, the overwhelming majority of people who are trafficked are trafficked by someone of the same ethnicity. However, this myth of interracial trafficking just won’t go away, and plays right into the hands of a low-key racist public (few people are willing to say that miscegenation should be illegal, just be sure the couple don’t fly together).
For those who think it’s just fine to call the police and let them sort it out, it isn’t the job of the police to deal with racist people. Whatever you may think of the age or ethnicity of the couple, there is no such thing as suspicious PEOPLE, but rather suspicious BEHAVIORS. This one easy question can help sort things out: “Thank you for your concern. What did you see them DO that you think is suspicious?”
So pilots believe anything the flight attendants tell them I would think they would get fired causing the airline extra time and money for something that was false?
You know what with all the Bs that’s going on in the world who gives a flying sh*t if they have a large age difference, what business is it of yours, the ones saying that comment is creepy, we have one life to live, so enjoy it and move on, who cares, where on the brink of ww3, people loosing their homes, the fires are destroying people houses, there’s others thing to worry about then age difference, as long as it is a legal age.