(NEXSTAR) – Michael Lowe says he was celebrating the 4th of July with friends in New Mexico last year when police showed up to investigate a disturbance. Before he knows it, Lowe says he was taken away and put in jail. But his alleged crimes had nothing to do with the party: there was a warrant out for his arrest in Tarrant County, Texas.
“Mr. Lowe’s confusion was profound: He didn’t know where Tarrant County, Texas was, and couldn’t even remember the last time he was in the state,” says the lawsuit filed Monday. Tarrant County, located west of Dallas, includes the cities of Fort Worth and Arlington.
Lowe says no one bothered to explain to him what was going on during 17 “excruciating” days and nights at the Quay County Detention Center. It wasn’t until later that Lowe realized that he had technically been in Tarrant County, on a layover flight through Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport.
Now, Lowe is suing American Airlines, saying the company is the reason he ended up in jail.
It all started in May 2020, explains the lawsuit shared with Nexstar. An airport duty-free store was robbed and surveillance cameras showed the suspect boarding American Airlines Flight No. 2248, according to the lawsuit.
That’s the same flight Lowe was on, flying to Reno, Nevada. Lowe lives in Arizona and was going to visit a friend. But Lowe says he wasn’t the one who robbed the airport store. Surveillance photos included in the lawsuit show the suspect wearing different clothing and with a different hairstyle than Lowe’s.
However, when airport police asked American Airlines for a list of passengers aboard the flight, the lawsuit alleges the airline offered only one name: Michael Lowe’s.
American Airlines told Nexstar that it is “reviewing the matter.” The airline did not provide further comment.
“American Airlines could have provided their full manifest for the flight or a list of everyone who matched a certain description (for example, all white males over the age of eighteen and under 65). American Airlines could also have conducted a proper search to identify the correct suspect and provide their information to law enforcement. Instead, American Airlines affirmatively and incorrectly identified Mr. Lowe as the sole suspect in the DFW Airport Police Department’s felony investigation that predictably led to Mr. Lowe’s arrest and incarceration for a crime of which he was innocent.” , reads part of the lawsuit.
In the court document, Lowe describes an “excruciating” stay in the New Mexico detention center, in which he feared violence from other inmates and the threat of contracting COVID-19 in a crowded cell.
“With only a fraction of the cots needed to prevent inmates from having to resort to sleeping on the concrete floor, and with no means of maintaining a space of their own, there was no shared solidarity among the men in the quarantine pod. but rather a palpable sense of threat,” the suit says.
After 17 days, a guard told him that he was going to be released. It took two days of bus travel to get to his home in Arizona, the suit says. It wasn’t until he was home and began making calls to Texas authorities, including an officer identified as Detective Torres, that he understood what had landed him in jail. He began contacting lawyers to try to help prove his innocence.
“Some time after Mr. Lowe’s release from jail, Detective Torres obtained Mr. Lowe’s mugshot from Quay County and compared it to the culprit’s photos; it was obvious that American Airlines had the wrong person,” the lawsuit says.
The charges were dismissed, but the lawsuit describes Lowe as a “changed man.”
“While Mr. Lowe understands that the likelihood of something like this happening to him again is slim, fear cannot be rationalized and infects virtually all of his decisions and actions,” the suit says.
Lowe’s attorney Scott Palmer told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram he blames the airline. “I blame the Americans,” he said. “If American hadn’t done what he did, (the detective) would never have issued a warrant. It all starts with the disclosure of his name and his name alone.”
Lowe is seeking damages for emotional distress as well as lost wages and income as a result of her arrest.
Reference-thehill.com