The United Fiasco clearly shows to me that people need to be trained to de-escalate.

[Locut0s]

I'm sure it's been talked about a lot in the past few days. The interesting thing about this to me is that, and this may not be a popular view point I don't know, it seems like a much more complicated series of events than people may think it is. Yes United fucked up big time but it's a whole series of mess ups. As I see it the factors that are involved are these:

1. Airlines routinely overbook flights because of the crappy business they are in. Planes need to fly as close to 100% capacity as possible or they lose money. Typical profit margins are less than 1% from a quick google.

2. Usually they get away with 1 because of cancellations which happen all the time, and when there aren't any they offer vouchers and alternatives. Usually someone will snap up one of those. In this case "Passengers were initially offered US$400 in vouchers, a hotel stay, and a seat on a plane leaving more than 21 hours later if they voluntarily deplaned. With no volunteers, the offer was increased to $800." I'm not saying those are great deals or that this should be the practise just that those are the facts and usually this doesn't happen. In this case there were no takers and a manager boarded the plane and selected 4 people, 3 of whom agreed to leave.

3. When David Dao refused to leave united requested help from police officers from the Chicago Department of Aviation.

It's when said aviation police boarded that things really escalated. He continued to refuse and they use physical violence to remove him.

Now the insane thing to me is that they didn't bump the 4 staff members instead of asking 4 people to leave to accommodate them. But the actual violence and forceful removal to me is more on the police officers.

I'm NOT defending the shitty policy, and the shitty way air lines are run. But this is par for the course for just about every air line. Customers basically are cattle and have no rights. That is WRONG! BUT sadly not really the exact point here I feel. The problem is that no one anywhere along the line seemed to be trained to de-escalate the situation. Instead they escalated it at every point up the line it seems. IMHO if I were in charge I would have made a call to a supervisor at some point and said, hay so this is what is happening, can we bump one of the 4 staff members or can I get special authorization to offer an ever better deal than the $800 offer. I know this is outside of our policy but things are getting ugly and we need to calm this down. No one made that call.

Once the police were involved we now were at a new level of tension. At this point it was between a rightfully angry customer who refused to move and police officers. And again the police officers should have been trained to de-escalate. That should ALWAYS be their go to. But sadly it seems violence is SO often the first thing they resolve to.

And to pour salt in the wound I can't for the life of me understand how the CEO of the airline didn't see this as a PR fucking DISASTER the moment he heard about it. He should have been on the phone to the customer that instant offering everything he could and insisting that heads would roll. I don't even care if the CEO is a right wing ass hole who doesn't give a shit about the situation and knows that what happened WAS their policy. You STILL kiss the ass of the customer, because otherwise shit's going to blow up in your face.

Fail, fail, fail, fail all down the line.

[Are_grits_groceries]

1. I was talking to somebody about that.

In a lot of situations, people escalate the problem. The original problem is minor but it becomes a BFD because somebody wants to prove something.

[Lee-Lee]

6. I saw it all the time as a deputy

People would take something minor like a shoplifting charge that would have been a ticket and release, and turn it into jail time by running and assualtig a responding officer.

Or a person who runs a red light and when the officer goes to pull them over ends up running.

Or the person who gets told to leave a premises and not return, not even a criminal charge at that point just an officer trespass notice, who just has to return because they think they are right.

Or the person in the midst of a breakup/divorce who has a protective order against them and just has to show up where the other party is located. Or goes and stands outside the other parties job before the other party gets there and says "I was here first so I'm right and he just can't go to work as long as I stand here" trying to game the system and mess with their work. (For the record when I arrest you and you tell the judge you were just sitting there in your car because you were "waiting for somebody" and you didn't violate the order by parking right outside his work because you were there first the judge will toss your ass in jail)

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. Any examples of police causing the escalation?

In the United case, it doesn't seem that the passenger was the escalateur. It seemed to be the security personnel.

None of your examples show the officer as the cause of escalation.

[Lee-Lee]

13. Problem is that Uniteds actions left them no choice but to escalate once called

United owned the plane, their aircrew wanted the person removed.

Once the cops are called it's not the role of them to mediate or judge if United was right for having him removed. That is a contract dispute and a matter for civil court. It is their job to remove the person from the plane that the aircrew want removed.

So the cops have to escalate if the person refuses to comply. It's the job. You can't just say "well, he says he won't cooperate so I guess we just ignore the law this time". It's part of the powers society entrusts government with to enforce laws to use force when necessary, and unless your an anarchist libertarian type it's part of the social contract you support if you want a government of laws.

They can't go in and ask him to leave and then say "oh, he says no, so we are just going to leave". There are calls like this where you don't get to exercise discretion. If the law says a person must leave an airplane when the aircrew requests it if the aircrew calls the police the police have to enforce that. There may be, and in this case was, a deeper problem of contract dispute and mismanagement involved bur mediating that or judging that is not the role of the cops on the ground there.

As I have said before, the actions of everyone involved put the cops in a no-win situation. The best possible outcome once they were called would be the doctor voluntarily going off the plane with them and then filing a civil suit against the airline. If they came in and the doctor refused to go with them and they told United "oh well, we asked and he refused" they would not be enforcing the law and not doing their job. Removing him with him resisting was a no-win.

United caused a mess and then put the officers in a no-win situation to clean that mess up. It's the same crap you see in schools where teachers will call cops for something like a child refusing to put away a phone and put officers in a no-win situation. There are situations where people never should be calling cops in the first place but they do, and once they do the cops have to do what the law says.

This is similar to an eviction I once worked. The eviction papers were properly done and issued by the court, but the person refused to leave insisting that the eviction was improper because the landlord had defrauded her. However as a deputy I had properly issued and legal eviction papers so her deeper dispute with the landlord couldn't play into the decision, we had to remove he from the premises and because she refused we ended up having physically remove her and when she went back in had to charge her with trespassing. She did pursue legal action against the landlord in civil court and I have no idea how it ended with that- but her underlying civil case wasn't a factor we could consider.

[Sculpin Beauregard]

2. They wouldn't bump the staff

Because that would have caused delayed or cancelled flights down the line. In other words, they would have lost money.

[Foamfollower]

4. They could have hired a car and driven them to Louisville

but that would put money in another company's pocket.

[Demsrule86]

11. There is no evidence that bouncing the staff who were not booked on

that flight would have caused any problem whatsoever. We have no idea why they were flying.

[TeamPooka]

3. nowadays every 'security issue" on a plane is treated like a terrorist, even if it's just a failed

customer service situation.
Flight crew know what will happen if they call security/police too.
They know and caused it to happen.

[Lee-Lee]

5. That's true on all sides

The good doctor also should have been more logical and saw that his refusal to leave wasn't going to make them change their minds. While he was rightfully mad, by the time law enforcement became involved he should have understood that refusal to listen to them was not going to make his circumstances any better in any way and could only make it worse.

The later released longer video taken from a few seats behind does show the officers taking to him calmly and rationally, telling him he was going to have to leave or they were going to have to drag him off. The video starts at a time that appears to be well into their conversation so I don't know how long they were talking to him before they escalated to using force to remove him but it is clear they were explaining to him calmly that he was going to have to leave the plane and he could either do so on his own or be drug off, and if they have to use force he was likely to face criminal charges for refusal to exit the plane and he still refused.

So they did come in and try to talk him into exiting the vehicle calmly and rationally explaining to him that he did not have a choice and explaining the consequences, and he refused. The initial video was started so late or cut so short it looked like they just rushed in and grabbed him without even talking to him, now we know that not to be the case.

People throw around terms like "de-escalate" all the time as if if is some sort of magic method that makes everyone calm and rational and live each other. The truth is quite often people refuse to listen to what you have to say and are determined that they are going to do what they want to do or believe what they want to believe no matter what.

[Denzil_DC]

8. I don't buy this.

I don't care what went on before or how stubborn you think Dao was being, the way they went about removing him from a cramped seat in a crowded cabin was rash and irresponsible, and pretty much guaranteed to result in an injury to someone and shock and alarm to many. They're very lucky it was just Dao who was injured.

[Demsrule86]

10. I disagree completely...these Airlines need to be called out on this

sort of thing...and in an age where they don't refund money for missed flights...they are doubling their profits...if that plane flies with an empty seat where the person missed the flight...nine times out of ten, that person did not get the money back...I was going to my sis's last Thanksgiving for my nephews wedding...my daughter broke her ankle and another child became ill and was hospitalized...I did not get my two tickets refunded...they sold that seat again and pocketed the additional money. I refuse to learn how to bow and scrape to my 'betters'. Screw United...we need a customer bill of rights in this country and to regulate the airlines...also Anti-trust needs to used to stop the constant mergers which have created a monopoly. The police work for the airlines, and they were there because United called them to remove paying passengers to make room for employees dead-heading...it is wrong. And United deserves everything coming their way. You want to act like an arrogant oligarch fine, but you will be accountable if people are injured by your irresponsible actions.

[Denzil_DC]

7. I've known a few pub and club bouncers in my time.

The best took pride in the fact they seldom had to get physical with customers, usually ones that were too drunk for their own good. One guy ran a pub in a roughish area of Glasgow. He was stocky, but not someone you'd immediately back in a wrestling match or fistfight. He said the art was to persuade someone who needed to leave that it was their idea to go.

If they could see the value in applying a little psychology and street smarts, I don't understand why this isn't a key part of the training of anyone who plays the role of enforcer.

[randome]

12. Points of failure.

Note: these are points of failure, not blame.

1. United not having contingency plans for getting their employees to their destination.
2. Dao's refusal to follow police instructions.
3. Police not having in their arsenal a better way of dealing with this.

The collective wisdom of society seems to be that one side or the other must accept total blame for what occurred. But this was, in a way, a 'perfect storm'.

An overused term is "shit happens". When a corporation is involved, that term implies we should all simply follow a corporation's orders and forget about having free will. When a member of a minority is involved, that term implies that minorities should mind their betters.

A corporation and a member of a minority are involved in this situation. Yet even then, sometimes, shit happens. I don't see the need to put the blame squarely on one side or the other. UA should pay this man's medical bills and give him lifetime flying privileges, but the idea that he should somehow end up owning the airline is ridiculous.
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