This happened back in October of 2019.
- Shannon Murphy, a social worker for Riverside county California had taken a 1 year old White child to visit his father in Arkansas. The child's mother lives in California. Court ordered parental visitation rights.
- For her flight back to Ontario Airport in California, she was transiting through Dallas Fort Worth Airport.
- She was flying American Airlines. She was inside the aircraft with the child when a passenger told crew members she (Shannon Murphy) was kidnapping the child.
While on the plane, another passenger told the flight attendant that Murphy had kidnapped the child, according to the lawsuit.
Airline workers told Murphy to get off the plane or “physical force would be used to make [her] comply,” according to the lawsuit.
- The Crew pull the social worker off the plane and seperate her from the 1 year old boy.
- Before she was pulled off the plane, she explained to the crew she was a social worker and tried showing her State I.D. and documentation showing the Court order for parental visitation rights and the child's birth certificate. But according to the article the crew didn't bother to look at it, instead they just pulled her off the flight.
Murphy said she had paperwork with her, including her work ID, the child's birth certificate, and a signed copy of the court order for the trip. She tried to show it to the airline employees on the plane, but they insisted she come with them, she said. They eventually checked the paperwork and said there had been a mistake, according to Murphy.
- About 40 mins later, the Airport said there was a mistake and let get back on the flight with the kid. She apologized to the other passengers for the delay. Other passengers expressed their support for her.
- One of the AA flight attendants said she was with the company for 21 years and never seen anything like this. She apologized to the social worker.
- Social worker is suing AA for Civil Rights violations and false imprisonement. According to the lawsuit, there was a kidnapping in NYC but the child in that case was a 5 year old Hispanic with black hair. This child was 1 year old, had fair skin , blonde hair and blue eyes.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article244299222.html
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article244299222.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-social-worker-suing-american-193343442.html
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There was a case in 2018 where a woman called the police on a Black guy babysitting / transporting the kids of his White friends. He was pulled over by cops .
It seems some people think anytime the race of the kids and parents does not match up, it is perfectly fine to accuse or suspect the adult of kidnapping. When people see an adult accompanying kids of a different race, the adult is assumed to be unrelated, so some think he/she is kidnapping. Ofcourse adults accompany unrelated kids all the time, but when the races are the same everyone assumes they are related. Either make it a law that all visibly unrelated adult-child groups need to prove they are not kidnapping or stop harassing people with no evidence / proof. These folks, like the passenger on the plane who accused the social worker of kidnapping, need to be charged.
