Southwest Airlines is being sued for alleged “racial profiling” over a 2021 incident in which a white mother was accused by an airline employee of possibly trafficking her black 10-year-old daughter as the two were on their way to a family funeral.
As BizPac Review reported at the time, Mary MacCarthy and her daughter, Moira, were stopped and confronted by a Southwest staffer and armed police officers at Denver Internation Airport after being flagged for human trafficking for suspicious behavior on the flight.
White mom stopped by police, says Southwest profiled her, accused her of trafficking black daughter https://t.co/JpBRE89wJG pic.twitter.com/vJB1X6epwE
— BizPac Review (@BIZPACReview) November 6, 2021
MacCarthy recorded the incident. In the background, Moira could be heard sobbing.
“It’s okay sweetheart,” MacCarthy told her daughter in the three-minute video. She told the authorities, “I have a daughter, who has unfortunately already been traumatized by police in her life.”
(Video: Daily Mail)
Though mother and daughter were ultimately let go, but according to the lawsuit, filed in Colorado on Thursday, the encounter with the Southwest staffer and the Denver Police Department cause the pair “extreme emotional distress.”
“To this day, when Moira and I are out in public—and especially at airports or on planes—I’m hyperaware that we might be judged and reported for any interaction we have with each other,” MacCarthy told Newsweek on Friday.
“It’s a strange feeling to be on alert about your most basic behaviors with your child, and it’s exhausting,” MacCarthy continued. “As for Moira [who is now 12], she still clams up and doesn’t want to talk about what happened.”
MacCarthy’s attorney, David Lane, said the goal of the lawsuit is to bring about accountability and a change to Southwest’s training and policies.
“In using racial profiling to cause the Denver police to stop innocent travelers, Southwest Airlines has attempted to address serious the criminal activity of sex-trafficking through use of a stereotypical, easy formula,” Lane said. “Just as the police are constitutionally not permitted to stop-and-frisk young men of color based upon their race, corporate America is similarly not permitted to resort to such profiling to use law enforcement to stop and question racially diverse families simply based upon their divergent races, which is what Southwest did.”
It’s a goal MacCarthy has pursued since the incident occurred.
“The day of the incident, it was clear to me that my family was racially profiled,” she said in 2021. “The airline and police need to be held accountable. They accosted us.”
The “suspicious” activity that raised concern included the fact that MacCarthy and her daughter were the last to board the flight, the mom asked passengers to switch seats so she could sit with her daughter, and, according to the flight attendant, the two didn’t speak to each other for the duration of the flight.
MacCarthy dismissed the last claim as false, saying she was sleeping.
Southwest spokesperson Chris Mainz said at the time, “We were disheartened to learn of this mother’s account when traveling with her daughter. We are conducting a review of the situation internally, and we will be reaching out to the Customer to address her concerns and offer our apologies for her experience traveling with us.”
“Our Employees undergo robust training on Human Trafficking,” Mainz continued. “Above all, Southwest Airlines prides itself on providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for the millions of customers who travel with us each year.”
The apology apparently failed to impress MacCarthy.
“In our interactions with Southwest Airlines since the incident, and with the information revealed in the bodycam footage, I’ve felt attacked as a mother and frankly as a human being,” she told Newsweek. “Customers should know the true nature of the company they’re doing business with.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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