17 ms·

Man sues American Airlines over identification, jail time

437 points by nabilhat 4y ago

atoav 4y ago
Reading about the way US law enforcement works gives me the shivers. The system is truly done for if there are no consequences to injustices like these.
isaacfrond 4y ago
17 days in jail for shoplifting??? What is that about??
zenincognito 4y ago
>>>Instead, American Airlines “departed from its established procedures,” according to the lawsuit, and sent police a single passenger’s information — Lowe’s. If an innocent man goes to jail, the penalties should be so profound that it hurts. They should be levied a billion dollar penalty and I would say even that would be generous.
- wombat-man 4y ago
  The story is insane and i hope he squeezes every dollar he can out of AA
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    American Airlines is a scapegoat for the broken justice system.
    - peddling-brink 4y ago
      Are you suggesting AA is an innocent party here? They messed up big time. Those accusations change lives. Nor is the American Justice system innocent, their handling of the situation was terrible, likely criminal.
      - tehwebguy 4y ago
        They are saying that the police should not have taken the action they took based solely on the unconfirmed identification provided by AA, which is correct.
      - astura 4y ago
        Police asked for a manifest. AA replied with a single passenger. Police should have realized right away this was an error and re-requested the manifest. Stills from surveillance footage (included in the actual complaint another poster linked to) show multiple people boarding the plane. The was this article is written is very bad journalism, AA (obviously) didn't know anything about the theft in a completely unrelated store, and didn't report it. The only thing they did was replied to a subpoena incorrectly. This article makes it sound like AA was doing their own investigation into a crime they knew nothing about.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - croes 4y ago
    Why AA? They didn't put him in jail for 17 days under cruel conditions. Everything after the wrong identification was done by the state. Especially if the differences between the wanted perpetrator and the arrested person is obvious.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      Because you haven't a prayer of punishing the state (although you may squeeze some money out of tax-payers who never agreed with the actions to begin with). Had some less egregious shit happen to me (border patrol lied and said a dog determined there were drugs up my ass). Got strip searched, taken to multiple hospitals across the state of Arizona against my will based on utterly fabricated 'probably cause' for attempted warrantless search of my body cavities. Cuffed and strutted and talked down to by doctors who called me a druggy purely based on entirely fabricated evidence, spending nearly a day in lobbies of hospitals while health care professionals ignored HIPAA and patient consent laws to do the bidding of border patrol. Looked up the court cases, a woman in identical situation was even raped by the doctors in every orifice on the same accusations and she didn't get jack. Step A when you've been wronged by the state is to find the most proximal private entity and put them through the ringer. In this case that's AA. The state will protect itself and even if you succeed you'll need to move afterwards. ------------- To the person who asked for link of the woman: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985537/gov.uscourts.azd.985537.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985...
      - croes 4y ago
        I'm shocked. That sounds like a corrupt third world country.
        ncmncm 4y ago
        Welcome to the US. Supposedly everybody wants to come here.
        dotancohen 4y ago
        No it doesn't. It might have sounded like a corrupt third world country before we had ready access to information other than what the local newspaper and encyclopedia could provide. But now that the individual has the tools to consider the bigger picture, this sounds exactly like the United States that I've been hearing about for well over a decade. Much of that I've become aware of right here on HN.
- rtpg 4y ago
  I don't understand how AA is the one getting sued here. The police is the one who ends up making determinations right? Along with the whole "17 days without knowing what the crime was"... What was going on with the justice system here? Of course AA is a component in the events that lead up to his arrest, but surely our justice system should not just arrest people on AA's word and not provide any recourse. Why are we putting shoplifters into a jail cell for 17 days _even if you knew they were shoplifters_. How does a judge look at this situation and determine that this person is a flight risk? There are so many points where humans could have intervened and stemmed the damage, but didn't.
  - andreareina 4y ago
    Both are at fault, but good luck getting a judgement against the state.
  - idontpost 4y ago
    > but surely our justice system should not just arrest people on AA's word and not provide any recourse If you are still ignorant enough to believe that, I have 1024 bridges to sell you in the tri-state area.
    - rtpg 4y ago
      I meant my statement to be about what things should be like. I am shocked at this case, but I am not too naive to believe that the justice system in the US (and elsewhere) is close to what it should be. If society wants things to be better, repeating how we think things should be over and over is helpful! It's better to have a place to go, rather than just declare we are not in the right place. Guess I'm a bit naive.
  - sk5t 4y ago
    > I don't understand how AA is the one getting sued here The article indicates that AA inexplicably identified the victim alone as the perpetrator, rather than sharing the passenger list with police. One imagines they'll be facing many, many millions in damages for such negligence.
- baby 4y ago
  See. They usually do randItem(suspectList) but they didn’t know suspectList was untrusted user input that only contained a single element
- wvenable 4y ago
  Would it even matter if AA misidentified him if the American justice system wasn't so terrible? The idea that a simple accusation immediately results in rather extreme punishment is the real problem, isn't it?
  - froggertoaster 4y ago
    - rtpg 4y ago
      17 days in a cell without being told what you're being locked up for? For shoplifting? Absolutely a waste of society's resources, unless you think the justice system is for vindication.
    - diob 4y ago
      You think 17 days in jail wouldn't upend your entire life? Bills? Jobs? Medications? (god knows what I'd do without my CPAP machine, die I guess)
      - froggertoaster 4y ago
        It would suck, and it might upend others. It would not upend my life.
        diob 4y ago
        Okay.
    - idontpost 4y ago
      - froggertoaster 4y ago
        What does this even mean? I would encourage you to stop using this word so much lest you find it lose its meaning and impact. Try calling me a racist instead?
- deleted 4y ago
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- Ekaros 4y ago
  I think terminating a companys existences. Or at least all of it's operation and for a period of let's say 3x is reasonable. If they are people we should be able to jail them. Have there be period where no one can work there and they can't operate.
- stackbutterflow 4y ago
  What happened to "It is better that 10 guilty persons escape, than that 1 innocent suffer"[0] Seems like the current US legal system is optimizing for false positives. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio
MengerSponge 4y ago
What a nightmare. If you (God forbid) find yourself falsely charged/arrested: Shut up. Get a lawyer. Don't talk to the police: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE You might think you can convince the authorities to see reason, but you're wrong. If they were reasonable people they would be in a different line of work. This is a problem to be fixed by a lawyer. You can afford it. You can repay debt when you're alive and free.
- eesmith 4y ago
  How would that have played out here? Would shutting up have resulted in less jail time? After he got out of jail, he "decided to find a lawyer. After weeks of searching for one he could afford, Lowe retained Palmer." What should have have done that while in jail?
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    I think there is some information missing. He would have been offered a public defender before the judge.
    - lokar 4y ago
      Probably not until he made it to Texas.
      - staticautomatic 4y ago
        He would have been entitled to an attorney when he went before the NM judge if he’d asked for one. Whatever that proceeding was, it would definitely have triggered the right to counsel.
  - wbl 4y ago
    Shutting up and asking for a lawyer even an overworked public defender would have gotten him better advice that would lead to him being arraigned and out on bail instead of letting his constitutional rights get violated for a fortnight.
rmk 4y ago
Why is the ACLU not involved here? This seems to fit the definition of false imprisonment and depriving someone of their civil rights under color of law.
- jdkee 4y ago
  The ACLU is no longer interested in protecting the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. See https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
  - DrewRWx 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - jdkee 4y ago
      Wow. You really have no idea of the history of First Amendment law, do you?
    - dannyw 4y ago
      It's not free speech if only the 'right' speech is protected.
      - DrewRWx 4y ago
        Personally, I respect the ACLU's freedom to not collaborate with fascists.
        effingwewt 4y ago
        Ah,so you do respect freedoms,but only the ones you agree with? A very short-sighted point of view. What happens of down the road someone decides what you think, believe, or say, is wrong? I'd quote Niemöller but I fear it would fall on deaf ears, (or blind eyes, I guess).
pigbearpig 4y ago
This is infuriating. How does it get to seventeen days in jail without talking to a lawyer? It was probably some COVID thing, but that's just not right. AA needs to pay. First thought is some overly enthusiastic AA security person going way too far in doing the identification that they should be leaving to law enforcement.
- paulpauper 4y ago
  I am not sure who is to blame: the airline, the police, the airport. probably equal blame to go around
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    The airline created the situation. The police willfully caused it to continue.
- throwaway742 4y ago
  I was detained by the LASD and asked to speak with a lawyer >20 times. They just kept coming back and trying different lines of questioning. They don't care about the law or your rights. It's all a big joke to them.
  - chinathrow 4y ago
    Were you able to follow-up on this clear mistreatment after you were released?
    - spoils19 4y ago
      While I agree with you, how would you even prove it? Police are likely to just say "he/she never asked for a lawyer", it has been clear over the decades that they lie for their own interest.
    - throwaway742 4y ago
      As the other commenter pointed out there is really nothing you can do about it. It is your word vs theirs. There is also the very real possibility of retaliation if I were to attempt to follow up with any sort of complaint process. This is a department that is notoriously infested with gangs. They have sent deputies to threaten a FBI agent, "lost" a FBI informant in their jails for weeks, etc.
Magi604 4y ago
Wow this is insane. I hope this blows up in a big way and everyone is aware of what happened here, and I hope Mr Lowe gets a big payday. >>>"After Lowe had been in jail for eight days, he was taken to a local judge. He still received no information about why he was there, he said. The judge told him his only options were to waive extradition — in which New Mexico would deliver him to Texas authorities — or wait for Texas authorities to pick him up. Lowe, unsure what the legal implications were of either option, waived extradition based on the court’s suggestion that he do so." This is such a perfect application of the term "kafkaesque". Also, is it weird that he was brought before a judge without having any sort of legal representation first, and that the judge was able to give Mr Lowe advice as to what to do? Imagining myself in his shoes, I wouldn't say a single word to the judge or anyone really before I had spoken with a lawyer, I don't care how long that takes. One wrong word and it's not hard to imagine his 17 day ordeal turning into something longer and more nightmarish.
- whyenot 4y ago
  Giving him a "payday" alone isn't really justice. Whoever is responsible should spend 17 days in jail. Of course, that will never happen, but it's what should happen if the goal is to prevent "mistakes" like this happening again and again. Same goes for the victims who were "mistakenly" reported (and arrested) as car thieves by rental agencies not that long ago. Money isn't justice.
  - ls15 4y ago
    > Whoever is responsible should spend 17 days in jail. It still would not be the same. They would have to be pulled out of their lifes randomly without knowing why and how long it will take. Maybe a factor could be applied to account for that uncertainty. n * 17 days in jail, where n will only be announced after the fact.
    - fnordpiglet 4y ago
      They should have to clean the jail. The story of his detention is bad enough, but the fact we treat human beings in this way simply because they’ve been detained - guilty or not - should be profoundly objectionable to everyone. But there seems to be this emergent belief that jail is supposed to be a house of horrors and the punishment is the horrors of the jail itself, rather than being deprived of freedom. Jails should be safe and clean, not traumatizing and filthy. The jail isn’t meant to be cruel and unusual punishment, but it has become that.
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macqm 4y ago
Is this a sequel to Franz Kafka's "The Trial"?
midislack 4y ago
Haven’t trusted AA since 911, glad to see my hunch is correct.
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago
  Could you perhaps elaborate? Was there any specific that American (and United, I suppose), did differently from other airlines that enabled the attack?
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
This story is bizarre and a complete nightmare, but there are just too many unexplained elements of the story for me to pass judgment yet: 1. The word "bail" doesn't occur in the story anywhere. Even if he were to be extradited, he would have to be offered bail, especially after he waived extradition. Why was no bail offered? 2. Being informed of charges against you is one of our most basic constitutional rights. Why didn't this happen? 2. Now, I'm not saying that some horrible local bureaucracy couldn't have put this man through this, but if that's the case, why is his lawyer only suing AA? There are like a million civil rights violations in this story as it is told - it's difficult for me to understand why a lawyer wouldn't go after those responsible for those violations. Again, I'm in no way saying I don't believe what happened to this man, but I would like to understand more of the missing details in this story.
- garyfirestorm 4y ago
  IANAL, probably the best outcome here is identifying an entity that can be sufficiently proven to have f'ed up and squeezing them hard.
- mtnGoat 4y ago
  I think you might have a bit too much faith in the criminal Justice system, no single person I know working in it respects it and considers its rules a burden to their job.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    Again, I totally agree with this, but if that's the case, why isn't the lawyer suing the jurisdiction as well?
    - cestith 4y ago
      AA took it upon themselves to identify the guy and made a false accusation against him. They also have deep pockets. They're likely both the easy and big-paying target. If I was suing everyone, I'd get the big payout first and then sue everyone else using that payout to fund the lawyers.
duxup 4y ago
> Despite the discrepancies in their appearances, American Airlines identified Lowe as the shoplifter seen in the surveillance footage I’m a little confused here. Just sending that … someone had to decide that they were the same person and pass that on to an attorney right? And then at the hearing did he ask any questions/ for a lawyer? Not blaming the guy, just wondering about how this played out.
av3csr 4y ago
Reminds me of the Ousmane Bah v. Apple situation
woodruffw 4y ago
What this man went through is horrible, the kind of living nightmare that most people in polite society never experience or even see. Now consider: there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people just like him, going through the exact same thing, right now. Their only differences: the overwhelming majority are poor and brown, and not all survive[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder
- turtledove 4y ago
  Considerably more than thousands. It's not acceptable to treat anyone this way.
noisy_boy 4y ago
For those saying that he should have sued the state because the police were at fault too for accepting AA's info at face value, he probably is focusing on the quickest way to settlement - a private company would settle quicker than the state and the payout could be pretty decent. Though it would be just to have the police face consequences too for their wrongdoing, can't blame him for going after the financial aspect and trying to put this behind him as quickly as possible.
eftychis 4y ago
Honestly, at this point in the U.S. maybe we should all have a lawyer on retainer and their phone number memorized and take no such situations lightly. Also, start actually punishing such mistakes. Detective(s), judge, police, and American Airlines (everyone involved) should be severely punished for once. And for God's sake, stop assuming someone that hasn't gone through a trial is guilty -- what is this... And for God's sake -- I know some other sibling commenter posted it too, but honestly just in case anybody misses it: Don't talk to the police. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE -- his situation could have been worse unfortunately.
- londgine 4y ago
  Do you know what the yearly fee of having a decent lawyer on retainer?
  - _s 4y ago
    Depends on the size of the firm, and how much you interact with them. A local law office with 1-2 lawyers and a few assistants; likely $1000-1500 that’s held by them to put towards any future requirements. Larger firms range from $5000-25000 for an individual, but again, usually this money is held in a trust on your behalf and you can use it to pay down any bills or let them keep it and pay the invoices as they come.
    - eftychis 4y ago
      Thank you -- was starting to write the same and then decided to double check nobody beat me to the punch. Fees are usually not annually but an advance -- but you can have a law firm on retainer on an annul basis -- that is they are expected to deal with a particular legal volume for you annually -- different notion slightly.
  - mtnGoat 4y ago
    That varies greatly. Mine was $5k, but I don’t have to repay yearly. Basically I just get easy access to get on his calendar and the first 5k is covered.
exogeny 4y ago
This is totally fucked, but the sad truth is that we’re only hearing about it because he’s not poor and black. It happens ALL THE TIME; just ask Kalief Browder’s family.
kstenerud 4y ago
For those wondering why he's not suing the government: Suing a government entity is a very long and costly affair, and is fraught with difficulties. Suing a company is MUCH easier by comparison. Unlike governments, companies tend to be very sensitive to bad press, and thus much more likely to yield to legal pressure. Therefore, your most promising tactic is to use the suit against the company to build a war chest and establish official records of fact that can then be drawn upon in the longer government campaign.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Yeah, that was my thought as well. But I'd also think this is the kind of thing that an organization like the ACLU would jump on.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  Generally, you can only sue the state if the state lets you. It's called sovereign immunity.
  - yardie 4y ago
    Sovereign immunity only applies to the individuals that work for the state while executing their job. You can absolutely sue the state, federal agencies, or your town hall. They get sued all the time. Derek Chauvin is getting the dogshit sued out of him now because he exceeded his duty and no longer qualified under sovereign immunity.
    - function_seven 4y ago
      You’re describing Qualified Immunity. Sovereign Immunity does indeed apply to the government itself, as well as heads of state and representatives of that government. It’s a superset of qualified immunity and absolute immunity.
  - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    Aren't things like being offered an attorney and being informed of your charges legal requirements for detention in USA. What grounds would the state have to refuse a court case based on such things? I'm hoping they'll get a massive payout and use some of it to launch a case against the authorities who allow such injustice to go unchecked.
ab_testing 4y ago
These kind of things are very common for black and other minorities in the US that they are not even reported . There have been so many cases involving black and latinos incarcerated based on some grainy picture on a security cam.
jetsnoc 4y ago
I personally experienced something similar 20 years ago. Mine was due to piss-poor policing as well. Thank The Universe that I wasn't in a jail-cell for two weeks and it wasn't during a pandemic. My story. I was living in Utah and a City police department in Idaho had a larceny warrant out for my arrest. Why? Before I had moved to Utah, I lived in Idaho. I drove a friend to another friends house and dropped them off. I later picked them up again. He didn't have a license or a car. Unbeknownst to me, allegedly, he stole a laptop when they were at the other persons house. The plates for my vehicle were written down and filed in the police report as a detail. The police report was clear that I didn't commit the theft, the other person did, but I drove them. The detectives were supposed to come get my statement and used my vehicle registration to call me and investigate. Someone got lazy and they put the arrest warrant out on me as the owner of the vehicle. Two years later, I'm driving to work one day and I get pulled over for a missing taillight and as they run my information, they find I have a warrant for Larceny theft for something over $2,500 out of Idaho. They throw me in Jail and keep me for four days. I was a naive and unexperienced "kid" (21 years old) thrown into a rough environment where others really had stolen cars, had hard drug problems and violent offenses and Utah was just waiting for as long as they wanted to extradite me back to Idaho. The environment was shocking to me. Insinuations of violence if I didn't give another "kid" my pillow, extreme anger and extreme homophobia everywhere. I couldn't get arraigned or get in front of a Judge since it wasn't a warrant out of Utah. My family in Idaho retained a lawyer, the lawyer interviewed the person who filed the police report and she knew who stole it and knew it wasn't me and she even told the police as much which cleared my name and got the warrant squashed and got me released. The company I worked for let me go without cause. Right to work state - Utah. The situation made them uncomfortable. Of course, no repercussions for a false warrant. I was in jail for four days, I lose my job, during the arrest they impounded my vehicle and I have to pay fees to get it out. I'm fortunate my family had the means to retain a lawyer and get the warrant squashed but if it wasn't for that luxury, I likely would have been there for at-least another week as Idaho took their sweet time to send a Sheriff to Utah to come pick me up. There really should be reform for the criteria required for a warrant and the criteria and timeframe for extradition. It should be a crime to imprison someone for four days or two weeks without being arraigned even if extradition is involved. It's 2022, can't extradition be required within 24-hours? We have planes and that expense would hopefully encourage a police department to be smart about the warrants they place. I wonder if I could have won a civil case for the shoddy police work leading to my legal expenses to get me out and my lost wages but didn't have the means to pursue it against the City Police Department. I licked my wounds, moved on and didn't really think about it again until this article.
mtnGoat 4y ago
Situation normal in America. Sadly this isn’t uncommon at all, I hope he takes the airline for all they are worth.
King-Aaron 4y ago
Reading the descriptions of the prison system in the US, it's hard to believe they call themselves a developed nation.
- s0sa 4y ago
  As opposed to which other superpower?
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    A superpower can afford not to be a hellhole for the majority of its citizens, and may choose that. Less powerful countries often succeed at it.
  - King-Aaron 4y ago
    Note that I said 'developed nation', not 'superpower'.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Always remember that they are a country with slavery enshrined in their constitution. That is they fully support it in certain cases. Should tell everything about their justice system.
  - ajdude 4y ago
    Also a country that fought a bloody civil war to abolish slavery less than 90 years after its founding.
    - krapp 4y ago
      The US didn't abolish slavery, they made it illegal "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," meaning only the federal and state governments were allowed to practice slavery from that point forward. That intentional backdoor has been used to oppress and re-enslave America's black population via unjust laws, incarceration and forced labor ever since that bloody civil war ended. There's a reason prisons in the South make their (predominantly black) inmates pick cotton, and it isn't because that's cost effective. Prison labor is a direct reinstatement of the former slave labor system, and many prisons in the South were formerly slave plantations.
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jrpt 4y ago
The police are negligent too if they held him for 17 days with just a name from American Airlines. The video evidence would've shown that wasn't him. When they didn't review the evidence until was already free and pleaded for them to review it, that's negligence. It sounds like they delayed getting him a lawyer too.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Police are routinely negligent and not much happens.
stevage 4y ago
I'm so confused here. Why is American Airlines involved at all? > surveillance cameras caught the suspect boarding a flight headed to Reno. American Airlines reported the theft to DFW Airport police, Why is AA reporting thefts from airport stores to police? Does AA have retail stores? > American Airlines identified Lowe as the shoplifter seen in the surveillance footage Why is AA involving itself in identifying shoplifters?! Providing footage I understand, but ID'ing?
- tyrfing 4y ago
  Seems like an error, considering the complaint doesn't state that AA reported the burglary. They were served a search warrant for records of everyone on the flight, and only produced this person's info.
thrwy_918 4y ago
It's really fucked up that so much discussion revolves around the more peripheral issues (the evidence from American Airlines, getting access to a lawyer, why bail wasn't set, whether or not it's appropriate for a judge to give legal advice to an accused person, etc) and not around the central issue. It's like everyone just accepts it's OK that being held in jail for a relatively short amount of time is a traumatizing experience. People held in jail are wards of the state. It is utterly unacceptable that people being held in jail have to fear for their physical safety. It is utterly unacceptable that people being held in jail have to fear sexual assault. It is utterly unacceptable that jails do not take appropriate precautions around communicable diseases. It is utterly unacceptable that people being held in jail are treated disrespectfully by jail staff. People being held in jail pending a hearing have been convicted of no crime. Jails should be safe and comfortable. Jail staff should be held to the highest standard.
- KingOfCoders 4y ago
  "It is utterly unacceptable that people being held in jail have to fear sexual assault." It looks like society disagrees, I'm astonished how nearly every "hero" in every TV show hints at "sexual assault" when someone goes to jail, does not want to talk etc. as something the person deserves.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Indeed. The brutal treatment of ""criminals"", up to and including summary execution in the street, is something that has very wide support. We went through all this with BLM and "defund the police", and people were very clear that this kind of treatment was what they definitely did want funded. People are very afraid of crime and will support anything happening to other people if they think it might reduce that.
awsrocks 4y ago
Horrible experience the poor man went through. I hope he finds justice and peace.
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chinathrow 4y ago
> Lowe said he didn’t even find out what he was charged with until after his release. The finest treatment you can get, right there.
- gbourne 4y ago
  That is kafkaesque level absurdity.
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
>Instead, American Airlines “departed from its established procedures,” according to the lawsuit, and sent police a single passenger’s information — Lowe’s. Has American Airlines said if they departed from their established procedures here, would be interesting to know. Because if they say they departed from established procedures that's really bad for them in court, but if they complied with their established procedures then they would have a reason why those are their procedures which they would have to say. hmm, well we have this procedure of telling the police who to pick up so as to protect the privacy of all our other passengers - that won't go very well for them in court either because big time they're liable.... sure doesn't look good for American Airlines
- astura 4y ago
  American surely gets subpoenas for manifests all the time. It's extraordinary unlikely their procedure is to do anything else other than provide the entire manifest. What probably happened was they provided a single passenger instead of the whole manifest due to human error. Of course the police should have actually confirmed there was only a single passenger and it wasn't a mistake.
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    Just went and double checked, don't see anything about a subpoena in the article?
    - astura 4y ago
      Yeah, the article is trash. The actual complaint has a story that makes sense. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22054162/michael-lowe-v-american-airlines.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22054162/michael-lowe... It was a search warrant, not a subpoena.
faangiq 4y ago
Execs need jail time and asset forfeiture over this. Quite simple.
KingOfCoders 4y ago
Now imagine you're not a US citizen and this happens to you at an airport.
turtledove 4y ago
The tone of this article that describes the conditions as inhumane and grotesque to the subject of the article feels real weird. It's not just dehumanizing to the one innocent person there, it's grotesque to treat anyone like we treat our prisoners. (Especially those not yet convicted.) While I recognize the impact to this one man was serious, and I hope he gets the help and support he needs to recover, we need to stop thinking about these one off failures in the system and start looking at what our prisons and policing do to everyone who passes through their custody.
mijkal 4y ago
Innocent, accused, or even found guilty — the conditions in American jails and prisons are barbaric and anathema to the proclaimed values we claim to hold. Our media and politicians are quick to portray deplorable conditions in Russia et al, but it happens right here all the time. I've had a couple family members and friend experience such treatment, including losing employment while it was getting sorted out. It's awful and needs more attention to change this. (Scandinavia is as close to an ideal that I can imagine, though I know American society is so focused on antiquated notions of revenge and punishment that it's going to be a long time coming to view these as places of rehabilitation and reintegration than of violent, dehumanizing retribution. The state has a duty to ensure humane and dignified treatment for everyone in its care.)
- dsincl12 4y ago
  Yes it might be more humane and better conditions for inmates but the problem is that it's too far to the other side. Instead of having the threat of jail time in a harsh environment, prisoners see it as a resort and a break from the criminal life they are living with full access to almost anything and they even have leave(!?) multiple times during their stay. Inmates have access to Playstation, Xbox, Netflix etc and better food than the schools serve to our children. Jail time is a joke as well, armed robbery 2 months, rape 3 months, assault 2-4 months, murder 4 years (with good behavior) and if they commit multiple crimes they get a discount(!?). I would prefer the harsher variant because now we have an influx of criminals from other places in the world where they have real punishments and they probably just laugh when they get sentenced here.
  - tifik 4y ago
    Why would you prefer it the US way? Doesnt the data show that the humane approach is actually reducing recidivism?
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Many people in the US actively want harmful punishment. They approach crime as "getting back" at the criminal, instead of thinking "how can we encourage this person to take healthy part in society, or keep them safely away from society otherwise" Someone who cannot safely be in normal society still deserves basic dignity
brundolf 4y ago
Welp, I've got one more reason to consider fleeing to a civilized country
tobyhinloopen 4y ago
USA Greatest country in the world! Or so we’re told. You guys need to get your shit together, this is pathetic
azinman2 4y ago
What I don’t get is AA isn’t in control of the court system or what happens in jail. I can totally get behind identifying the wrong guy, how can they be blamed for shitty conditions?
BrianHenryIE 4y ago
A very good account to follow on Twitter who is fighting for our rights: https://twitter.com/equalityAlec https://twitter.com/equalityAlec Because of this post on HN, I've set up a monthly donation.
dusted 4y ago
I get why he sues them, because he has a chance there that he wouldn't have against "the system". But guilty or not, nobody should have to endure what he experienced in a so-called civilized society, there is no way such experiences would help people reform, if anything, it would serve as a strong indication that there indeed is no right or wrong in the world, that the establishment is not deserving of respect and that the real priority should be avoid getting caught.
TimesOldRoman 4y ago
This sort of thing happens all the time in big cities. Person is arrested, life up ended, and charges end up being dropped or dismissed. Their personal life has suffered a major setback, all for a government oversight.

437 points by nabilhat 4y ago

Reading about the way US law enforcement works gives me the shivers. The system is truly done for if there are no consequences to injustices like these.

isaacfrond 4y ago

17 days in jail for shoplifting??? What is that about??

zenincognito 4y ago

>>>Instead, American Airlines “departed from its established procedures,” according to the lawsuit, and sent police a single passenger’s information — Lowe’s. If an innocent man goes to jail, the penalties should be so profound that it hurts. They should be levied a billion dollar penalty and I would say even that would be generous.

wombat-man 4y ago
The story is insane and i hope he squeezes every dollar he can out of AA
- nerdponx 4y ago
  American Airlines is a scapegoat for the broken justice system.
  - peddling-brink 4y ago
    Are you suggesting AA is an innocent party here? They messed up big time. Those accusations change lives. Nor is the American Justice system innocent, their handling of the situation was terrible, likely criminal.
    - tehwebguy 4y ago
      They are saying that the police should not have taken the action they took based solely on the unconfirmed identification provided by AA, which is correct.
    - astura 4y ago
      Police asked for a manifest. AA replied with a single passenger. Police should have realized right away this was an error and re-requested the manifest. Stills from surveillance footage (included in the actual complaint another poster linked to) show multiple people boarding the plane. The was this article is written is very bad journalism, AA (obviously) didn't know anything about the theft in a completely unrelated store, and didn't report it. The only thing they did was replied to a subpoena incorrectly. This article makes it sound like AA was doing their own investigation into a crime they knew nothing about.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- croes 4y ago
  Why AA? They didn't put him in jail for 17 days under cruel conditions. Everything after the wrong identification was done by the state. Especially if the differences between the wanted perpetrator and the arrested person is obvious.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Because you haven't a prayer of punishing the state (although you may squeeze some money out of tax-payers who never agreed with the actions to begin with). Had some less egregious shit happen to me (border patrol lied and said a dog determined there were drugs up my ass). Got strip searched, taken to multiple hospitals across the state of Arizona against my will based on utterly fabricated 'probably cause' for attempted warrantless search of my body cavities. Cuffed and strutted and talked down to by doctors who called me a druggy purely based on entirely fabricated evidence, spending nearly a day in lobbies of hospitals while health care professionals ignored HIPAA and patient consent laws to do the bidding of border patrol. Looked up the court cases, a woman in identical situation was even raped by the doctors in every orifice on the same accusations and she didn't get jack. Step A when you've been wronged by the state is to find the most proximal private entity and put them through the ringer. In this case that's AA. The state will protect itself and even if you succeed you'll need to move afterwards. ------------- To the person who asked for link of the woman: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985537/gov.uscourts.azd.985537.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985...
    - croes 4y ago
      I'm shocked. That sounds like a corrupt third world country.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Welcome to the US. Supposedly everybody wants to come here.
      - dotancohen 4y ago
        No it doesn't. It might have sounded like a corrupt third world country before we had ready access to information other than what the local newspaper and encyclopedia could provide. But now that the individual has the tools to consider the bigger picture, this sounds exactly like the United States that I've been hearing about for well over a decade. Much of that I've become aware of right here on HN.
rtpg 4y ago
I don't understand how AA is the one getting sued here. The police is the one who ends up making determinations right? Along with the whole "17 days without knowing what the crime was"... What was going on with the justice system here? Of course AA is a component in the events that lead up to his arrest, but surely our justice system should not just arrest people on AA's word and not provide any recourse. Why are we putting shoplifters into a jail cell for 17 days _even if you knew they were shoplifters_. How does a judge look at this situation and determine that this person is a flight risk? There are so many points where humans could have intervened and stemmed the damage, but didn't.
- andreareina 4y ago
  Both are at fault, but good luck getting a judgement against the state.
- idontpost 4y ago
  > but surely our justice system should not just arrest people on AA's word and not provide any recourse If you are still ignorant enough to believe that, I have 1024 bridges to sell you in the tri-state area.
  - rtpg 4y ago
    I meant my statement to be about what things should be like. I am shocked at this case, but I am not too naive to believe that the justice system in the US (and elsewhere) is close to what it should be. If society wants things to be better, repeating how we think things should be over and over is helpful! It's better to have a place to go, rather than just declare we are not in the right place. Guess I'm a bit naive.
- sk5t 4y ago
  > I don't understand how AA is the one getting sued here The article indicates that AA inexplicably identified the victim alone as the perpetrator, rather than sharing the passenger list with police. One imagines they'll be facing many, many millions in damages for such negligence.
baby 4y ago
See. They usually do randItem(suspectList) but they didn’t know suspectList was untrusted user input that only contained a single element
wvenable 4y ago
Would it even matter if AA misidentified him if the American justice system wasn't so terrible? The idea that a simple accusation immediately results in rather extreme punishment is the real problem, isn't it?
- froggertoaster 4y ago
  - rtpg 4y ago
    17 days in a cell without being told what you're being locked up for? For shoplifting? Absolutely a waste of society's resources, unless you think the justice system is for vindication.
  - diob 4y ago
    You think 17 days in jail wouldn't upend your entire life? Bills? Jobs? Medications? (god knows what I'd do without my CPAP machine, die I guess)
    - froggertoaster 4y ago
      It would suck, and it might upend others. It would not upend my life.
      - diob 4y ago
        Okay.
  - idontpost 4y ago
    - froggertoaster 4y ago
      What does this even mean? I would encourage you to stop using this word so much lest you find it lose its meaning and impact. Try calling me a racist instead?
deleted 4y ago
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Ekaros 4y ago
I think terminating a companys existences. Or at least all of it's operation and for a period of let's say 3x is reasonable. If they are people we should be able to jail them. Have there be period where no one can work there and they can't operate.
stackbutterflow 4y ago
What happened to "It is better that 10 guilty persons escape, than that 1 innocent suffer"[0] Seems like the current US legal system is optimizing for false positives. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio

MengerSponge 4y ago

What a nightmare. If you (God forbid) find yourself falsely charged/arrested: Shut up. Get a lawyer. Don't talk to the police: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE You might think you can convince the authorities to see reason, but you're wrong. If they were reasonable people they would be in a different line of work. This is a problem to be fixed by a lawyer. You can afford it. You can repay debt when you're alive and free.

eesmith 4y ago
How would that have played out here? Would shutting up have resulted in less jail time? After he got out of jail, he "decided to find a lawyer. After weeks of searching for one he could afford, Lowe retained Palmer." What should have have done that while in jail?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  I think there is some information missing. He would have been offered a public defender before the judge.
  - lokar 4y ago
    Probably not until he made it to Texas.
    - staticautomatic 4y ago
      He would have been entitled to an attorney when he went before the NM judge if he’d asked for one. Whatever that proceeding was, it would definitely have triggered the right to counsel.
- wbl 4y ago
  Shutting up and asking for a lawyer even an overworked public defender would have gotten him better advice that would lead to him being arraigned and out on bail instead of letting his constitutional rights get violated for a fortnight.

rmk 4y ago

Why is the ACLU not involved here? This seems to fit the definition of false imprisonment and depriving someone of their civil rights under color of law.

jdkee 4y ago
The ACLU is no longer interested in protecting the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. See https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
- DrewRWx 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - jdkee 4y ago
    Wow. You really have no idea of the history of First Amendment law, do you?
  - dannyw 4y ago
    It's not free speech if only the 'right' speech is protected.
    - DrewRWx 4y ago
      Personally, I respect the ACLU's freedom to not collaborate with fascists.
      - effingwewt 4y ago
        Ah,so you do respect freedoms,but only the ones you agree with? A very short-sighted point of view. What happens of down the road someone decides what you think, believe, or say, is wrong? I'd quote Niemöller but I fear it would fall on deaf ears, (or blind eyes, I guess).

pigbearpig 4y ago

This is infuriating. How does it get to seventeen days in jail without talking to a lawyer? It was probably some COVID thing, but that's just not right. AA needs to pay. First thought is some overly enthusiastic AA security person going way too far in doing the identification that they should be leaving to law enforcement.

paulpauper 4y ago
I am not sure who is to blame: the airline, the police, the airport. probably equal blame to go around
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  The airline created the situation. The police willfully caused it to continue.
throwaway742 4y ago
I was detained by the LASD and asked to speak with a lawyer >20 times. They just kept coming back and trying different lines of questioning. They don't care about the law or your rights. It's all a big joke to them.
- chinathrow 4y ago
  Were you able to follow-up on this clear mistreatment after you were released?
  - spoils19 4y ago
    While I agree with you, how would you even prove it? Police are likely to just say "he/she never asked for a lawyer", it has been clear over the decades that they lie for their own interest.
  - throwaway742 4y ago
    As the other commenter pointed out there is really nothing you can do about it. It is your word vs theirs. There is also the very real possibility of retaliation if I were to attempt to follow up with any sort of complaint process. This is a department that is notoriously infested with gangs. They have sent deputies to threaten a FBI agent, "lost" a FBI informant in their jails for weeks, etc.

Magi604 4y ago

Wow this is insane. I hope this blows up in a big way and everyone is aware of what happened here, and I hope Mr Lowe gets a big payday. >>>"After Lowe had been in jail for eight days, he was taken to a local judge. He still received no information about why he was there, he said. The judge told him his only options were to waive extradition — in which New Mexico would deliver him to Texas authorities — or wait for Texas authorities to pick him up. Lowe, unsure what the legal implications were of either option, waived extradition based on the court’s suggestion that he do so." This is such a perfect application of the term "kafkaesque". Also, is it weird that he was brought before a judge without having any sort of legal representation first, and that the judge was able to give Mr Lowe advice as to what to do? Imagining myself in his shoes, I wouldn't say a single word to the judge or anyone really before I had spoken with a lawyer, I don't care how long that takes. One wrong word and it's not hard to imagine his 17 day ordeal turning into something longer and more nightmarish.

whyenot 4y ago
Giving him a "payday" alone isn't really justice. Whoever is responsible should spend 17 days in jail. Of course, that will never happen, but it's what should happen if the goal is to prevent "mistakes" like this happening again and again. Same goes for the victims who were "mistakenly" reported (and arrested) as car thieves by rental agencies not that long ago. Money isn't justice.
- ls15 4y ago
  > Whoever is responsible should spend 17 days in jail. It still would not be the same. They would have to be pulled out of their lifes randomly without knowing why and how long it will take. Maybe a factor could be applied to account for that uncertainty. n * 17 days in jail, where n will only be announced after the fact.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    They should have to clean the jail. The story of his detention is bad enough, but the fact we treat human beings in this way simply because they’ve been detained - guilty or not - should be profoundly objectionable to everyone. But there seems to be this emergent belief that jail is supposed to be a house of horrors and the punishment is the horrors of the jail itself, rather than being deprived of freedom. Jails should be safe and clean, not traumatizing and filthy. The jail isn’t meant to be cruel and unusual punishment, but it has become that.

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[deleted]

macqm 4y ago

Is this a sequel to Franz Kafka's "The Trial"?

midislack 4y ago

Haven’t trusted AA since 911, glad to see my hunch is correct.

Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago
Could you perhaps elaborate? Was there any specific that American (and United, I suppose), did differently from other airlines that enabled the attack?

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

This story is bizarre and a complete nightmare, but there are just too many unexplained elements of the story for me to pass judgment yet: 1. The word "bail" doesn't occur in the story anywhere. Even if he were to be extradited, he would have to be offered bail, especially after he waived extradition. Why was no bail offered? 2. Being informed of charges against you is one of our most basic constitutional rights. Why didn't this happen? 2. Now, I'm not saying that some horrible local bureaucracy couldn't have put this man through this, but if that's the case, why is his lawyer only suing AA? There are like a million civil rights violations in this story as it is told - it's difficult for me to understand why a lawyer wouldn't go after those responsible for those violations. Again, I'm in no way saying I don't believe what happened to this man, but I would like to understand more of the missing details in this story.

garyfirestorm 4y ago
IANAL, probably the best outcome here is identifying an entity that can be sufficiently proven to have f'ed up and squeezing them hard.
mtnGoat 4y ago
I think you might have a bit too much faith in the criminal Justice system, no single person I know working in it respects it and considers its rules a burden to their job.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Again, I totally agree with this, but if that's the case, why isn't the lawyer suing the jurisdiction as well?
  - cestith 4y ago
    AA took it upon themselves to identify the guy and made a false accusation against him. They also have deep pockets. They're likely both the easy and big-paying target. If I was suing everyone, I'd get the big payout first and then sue everyone else using that payout to fund the lawyers.

duxup 4y ago

> Despite the discrepancies in their appearances, American Airlines identified Lowe as the shoplifter seen in the surveillance footage I’m a little confused here. Just sending that … someone had to decide that they were the same person and pass that on to an attorney right? And then at the hearing did he ask any questions/ for a lawyer? Not blaming the guy, just wondering about how this played out.

av3csr 4y ago

Reminds me of the Ousmane Bah v. Apple situation

woodruffw 4y ago

What this man went through is horrible, the kind of living nightmare that most people in polite society never experience or even see. Now consider: there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people just like him, going through the exact same thing, right now. Their only differences: the overwhelming majority are poor and brown, and not all survive[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder

turtledove 4y ago
Considerably more than thousands. It's not acceptable to treat anyone this way.

noisy_boy 4y ago

For those saying that he should have sued the state because the police were at fault too for accepting AA's info at face value, he probably is focusing on the quickest way to settlement - a private company would settle quicker than the state and the payout could be pretty decent. Though it would be just to have the police face consequences too for their wrongdoing, can't blame him for going after the financial aspect and trying to put this behind him as quickly as possible.

eftychis 4y ago

Honestly, at this point in the U.S. maybe we should all have a lawyer on retainer and their phone number memorized and take no such situations lightly. Also, start actually punishing such mistakes. Detective(s), judge, police, and American Airlines (everyone involved) should be severely punished for once. And for God's sake, stop assuming someone that hasn't gone through a trial is guilty -- what is this... And for God's sake -- I know some other sibling commenter posted it too, but honestly just in case anybody misses it: Don't talk to the police. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE -- his situation could have been worse unfortunately.

londgine 4y ago
Do you know what the yearly fee of having a decent lawyer on retainer?
- _s 4y ago
  Depends on the size of the firm, and how much you interact with them. A local law office with 1-2 lawyers and a few assistants; likely $1000-1500 that’s held by them to put towards any future requirements. Larger firms range from $5000-25000 for an individual, but again, usually this money is held in a trust on your behalf and you can use it to pay down any bills or let them keep it and pay the invoices as they come.
  - eftychis 4y ago
    Thank you -- was starting to write the same and then decided to double check nobody beat me to the punch. Fees are usually not annually but an advance -- but you can have a law firm on retainer on an annul basis -- that is they are expected to deal with a particular legal volume for you annually -- different notion slightly.
- mtnGoat 4y ago
  That varies greatly. Mine was $5k, but I don’t have to repay yearly. Basically I just get easy access to get on his calendar and the first 5k is covered.

exogeny 4y ago

This is totally fucked, but the sad truth is that we’re only hearing about it because he’s not poor and black. It happens ALL THE TIME; just ask Kalief Browder’s family.

kstenerud 4y ago

For those wondering why he's not suing the government: Suing a government entity is a very long and costly affair, and is fraught with difficulties. Suing a company is MUCH easier by comparison. Unlike governments, companies tend to be very sensitive to bad press, and thus much more likely to yield to legal pressure. Therefore, your most promising tactic is to use the suit against the company to build a war chest and establish official records of fact that can then be drawn upon in the longer government campaign.

kelnos 4y ago
Yeah, that was my thought as well. But I'd also think this is the kind of thing that an organization like the ACLU would jump on.
dehrmann 4y ago
Generally, you can only sue the state if the state lets you. It's called sovereign immunity.
- yardie 4y ago
  Sovereign immunity only applies to the individuals that work for the state while executing their job. You can absolutely sue the state, federal agencies, or your town hall. They get sued all the time. Derek Chauvin is getting the dogshit sued out of him now because he exceeded his duty and no longer qualified under sovereign immunity.
  - function_seven 4y ago
    You’re describing Qualified Immunity. Sovereign Immunity does indeed apply to the government itself, as well as heads of state and representatives of that government. It’s a superset of qualified immunity and absolute immunity.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  Aren't things like being offered an attorney and being informed of your charges legal requirements for detention in USA. What grounds would the state have to refuse a court case based on such things? I'm hoping they'll get a massive payout and use some of it to launch a case against the authorities who allow such injustice to go unchecked.

ab_testing 4y ago

These kind of things are very common for black and other minorities in the US that they are not even reported . There have been so many cases involving black and latinos incarcerated based on some grainy picture on a security cam.

jetsnoc 4y ago

I personally experienced something similar 20 years ago. Mine was due to piss-poor policing as well. Thank The Universe that I wasn't in a jail-cell for two weeks and it wasn't during a pandemic. My story. I was living in Utah and a City police department in Idaho had a larceny warrant out for my arrest. Why? Before I had moved to Utah, I lived in Idaho. I drove a friend to another friends house and dropped them off. I later picked them up again. He didn't have a license or a car. Unbeknownst to me, allegedly, he stole a laptop when they were at the other persons house. The plates for my vehicle were written down and filed in the police report as a detail. The police report was clear that I didn't commit the theft, the other person did, but I drove them. The detectives were supposed to come get my statement and used my vehicle registration to call me and investigate. Someone got lazy and they put the arrest warrant out on me as the owner of the vehicle. Two years later, I'm driving to work one day and I get pulled over for a missing taillight and as they run my information, they find I have a warrant for Larceny theft for something over $2,500 out of Idaho. They throw me in Jail and keep me for four days. I was a naive and unexperienced "kid" (21 years old) thrown into a rough environment where others really had stolen cars, had hard drug problems and violent offenses and Utah was just waiting for as long as they wanted to extradite me back to Idaho. The environment was shocking to me. Insinuations of violence if I didn't give another "kid" my pillow, extreme anger and extreme homophobia everywhere. I couldn't get arraigned or get in front of a Judge since it wasn't a warrant out of Utah. My family in Idaho retained a lawyer, the lawyer interviewed the person who filed the police report and she knew who stole it and knew it wasn't me and she even told the police as much which cleared my name and got the warrant squashed and got me released. The company I worked for let me go without cause. Right to work state - Utah. The situation made them uncomfortable. Of course, no repercussions for a false warrant. I was in jail for four days, I lose my job, during the arrest they impounded my vehicle and I have to pay fees to get it out. I'm fortunate my family had the means to retain a lawyer and get the warrant squashed but if it wasn't for that luxury, I likely would have been there for at-least another week as Idaho took their sweet time to send a Sheriff to Utah to come pick me up. There really should be reform for the criteria required for a warrant and the criteria and timeframe for extradition. It should be a crime to imprison someone for four days or two weeks without being arraigned even if extradition is involved. It's 2022, can't extradition be required within 24-hours? We have planes and that expense would hopefully encourage a police department to be smart about the warrants they place. I wonder if I could have won a civil case for the shoddy police work leading to my legal expenses to get me out and my lost wages but didn't have the means to pursue it against the City Police Department. I licked my wounds, moved on and didn't really think about it again until this article.

mtnGoat 4y ago

Situation normal in America. Sadly this isn’t uncommon at all, I hope he takes the airline for all they are worth.

King-Aaron 4y ago

Reading the descriptions of the prison system in the US, it's hard to believe they call themselves a developed nation.

s0sa 4y ago
As opposed to which other superpower?
- ncmncm 4y ago
  A superpower can afford not to be a hellhole for the majority of its citizens, and may choose that. Less powerful countries often succeed at it.
- King-Aaron 4y ago
  Note that I said 'developed nation', not 'superpower'.
Ekaros 4y ago
Always remember that they are a country with slavery enshrined in their constitution. That is they fully support it in certain cases. Should tell everything about their justice system.
- ajdude 4y ago
  Also a country that fought a bloody civil war to abolish slavery less than 90 years after its founding.
  - krapp 4y ago
    The US didn't abolish slavery, they made it illegal "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," meaning only the federal and state governments were allowed to practice slavery from that point forward. That intentional backdoor has been used to oppress and re-enslave America's black population via unjust laws, incarceration and forced labor ever since that bloody civil war ended. There's a reason prisons in the South make their (predominantly black) inmates pick cotton, and it isn't because that's cost effective. Prison labor is a direct reinstatement of the former slave labor system, and many prisons in the South were formerly slave plantations.

deleted 4y ago

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jrpt 4y ago

The police are negligent too if they held him for 17 days with just a name from American Airlines. The video evidence would've shown that wasn't him. When they didn't review the evidence until was already free and pleaded for them to review it, that's negligence. It sounds like they delayed getting him a lawyer too.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Police are routinely negligent and not much happens.

stevage 4y ago

I'm so confused here. Why is American Airlines involved at all? > surveillance cameras caught the suspect boarding a flight headed to Reno. American Airlines reported the theft to DFW Airport police, Why is AA reporting thefts from airport stores to police? Does AA have retail stores? > American Airlines identified Lowe as the shoplifter seen in the surveillance footage Why is AA involving itself in identifying shoplifters?! Providing footage I understand, but ID'ing?

tyrfing 4y ago
Seems like an error, considering the complaint doesn't state that AA reported the burglary. They were served a search warrant for records of everyone on the flight, and only produced this person's info.

thrwy_918 4y ago

It's really fucked up that so much discussion revolves around the more peripheral issues (the evidence from American Airlines, getting access to a lawyer, why bail wasn't set, whether or not it's appropriate for a judge to give legal advice to an accused person, etc) and not around the central issue. It's like everyone just accepts it's OK that being held in jail for a relatively short amount of time is a traumatizing experience. People held in jail are wards of the state. It is utterly unacceptable that people being held in jail have to fear for their physical safety. It is utterly unacceptable that people being held in jail have to fear sexual assault. It is utterly unacceptable that jails do not take appropriate precautions around communicable diseases. It is utterly unacceptable that people being held in jail are treated disrespectfully by jail staff. People being held in jail pending a hearing have been convicted of no crime. Jails should be safe and comfortable. Jail staff should be held to the highest standard.

KingOfCoders 4y ago
"It is utterly unacceptable that people being held in jail have to fear sexual assault." It looks like society disagrees, I'm astonished how nearly every "hero" in every TV show hints at "sexual assault" when someone goes to jail, does not want to talk etc. as something the person deserves.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Indeed. The brutal treatment of ""criminals"", up to and including summary execution in the street, is something that has very wide support. We went through all this with BLM and "defund the police", and people were very clear that this kind of treatment was what they definitely did want funded. People are very afraid of crime and will support anything happening to other people if they think it might reduce that.

awsrocks 4y ago

Horrible experience the poor man went through. I hope he finds justice and peace.

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chinathrow 4y ago

> Lowe said he didn’t even find out what he was charged with until after his release. The finest treatment you can get, right there.

gbourne 4y ago
That is kafkaesque level absurdity.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

>Instead, American Airlines “departed from its established procedures,” according to the lawsuit, and sent police a single passenger’s information — Lowe’s. Has American Airlines said if they departed from their established procedures here, would be interesting to know. Because if they say they departed from established procedures that's really bad for them in court, but if they complied with their established procedures then they would have a reason why those are their procedures which they would have to say. hmm, well we have this procedure of telling the police who to pick up so as to protect the privacy of all our other passengers - that won't go very well for them in court either because big time they're liable.... sure doesn't look good for American Airlines

astura 4y ago
American surely gets subpoenas for manifests all the time. It's extraordinary unlikely their procedure is to do anything else other than provide the entire manifest. What probably happened was they provided a single passenger instead of the whole manifest due to human error. Of course the police should have actually confirmed there was only a single passenger and it wasn't a mistake.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  Just went and double checked, don't see anything about a subpoena in the article?
  - astura 4y ago
    Yeah, the article is trash. The actual complaint has a story that makes sense. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22054162/michael-lowe-v-american-airlines.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22054162/michael-lowe... It was a search warrant, not a subpoena.

faangiq 4y ago

Execs need jail time and asset forfeiture over this. Quite simple.

KingOfCoders 4y ago

Now imagine you're not a US citizen and this happens to you at an airport.

turtledove 4y ago

The tone of this article that describes the conditions as inhumane and grotesque to the subject of the article feels real weird. It's not just dehumanizing to the one innocent person there, it's grotesque to treat anyone like we treat our prisoners. (Especially those not yet convicted.) While I recognize the impact to this one man was serious, and I hope he gets the help and support he needs to recover, we need to stop thinking about these one off failures in the system and start looking at what our prisons and policing do to everyone who passes through their custody.

mijkal 4y ago

Innocent, accused, or even found guilty — the conditions in American jails and prisons are barbaric and anathema to the proclaimed values we claim to hold. Our media and politicians are quick to portray deplorable conditions in Russia et al, but it happens right here all the time. I've had a couple family members and friend experience such treatment, including losing employment while it was getting sorted out. It's awful and needs more attention to change this. (Scandinavia is as close to an ideal that I can imagine, though I know American society is so focused on antiquated notions of revenge and punishment that it's going to be a long time coming to view these as places of rehabilitation and reintegration than of violent, dehumanizing retribution. The state has a duty to ensure humane and dignified treatment for everyone in its care.)

dsincl12 4y ago
Yes it might be more humane and better conditions for inmates but the problem is that it's too far to the other side. Instead of having the threat of jail time in a harsh environment, prisoners see it as a resort and a break from the criminal life they are living with full access to almost anything and they even have leave(!?) multiple times during their stay. Inmates have access to Playstation, Xbox, Netflix etc and better food than the schools serve to our children. Jail time is a joke as well, armed robbery 2 months, rape 3 months, assault 2-4 months, murder 4 years (with good behavior) and if they commit multiple crimes they get a discount(!?). I would prefer the harsher variant because now we have an influx of criminals from other places in the world where they have real punishments and they probably just laugh when they get sentenced here.
- tifik 4y ago
  Why would you prefer it the US way? Doesnt the data show that the humane approach is actually reducing recidivism?
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Many people in the US actively want harmful punishment. They approach crime as "getting back" at the criminal, instead of thinking "how can we encourage this person to take healthy part in society, or keep them safely away from society otherwise" Someone who cannot safely be in normal society still deserves basic dignity

brundolf 4y ago

Welp, I've got one more reason to consider fleeing to a civilized country

tobyhinloopen 4y ago

USA Greatest country in the world! Or so we’re told. You guys need to get your shit together, this is pathetic

azinman2 4y ago

What I don’t get is AA isn’t in control of the court system or what happens in jail. I can totally get behind identifying the wrong guy, how can they be blamed for shitty conditions?

BrianHenryIE 4y ago

A very good account to follow on Twitter who is fighting for our rights: https://twitter.com/equalityAlec https://twitter.com/equalityAlec Because of this post on HN, I've set up a monthly donation.

dusted 4y ago

I get why he sues them, because he has a chance there that he wouldn't have against "the system". But guilty or not, nobody should have to endure what he experienced in a so-called civilized society, there is no way such experiences would help people reform, if anything, it would serve as a strong indication that there indeed is no right or wrong in the world, that the establishment is not deserving of respect and that the real priority should be avoid getting caught.

TimesOldRoman 4y ago

This sort of thing happens all the time in big cities. Person is arrested, life up ended, and charges end up being dropped or dismissed. Their personal life has suffered a major setback, all for a government oversight.