By Michelle Marchante and Charles Rabin
Source Miami Herald
Two men were arrested in a brawl involving passengers and a Miami-Dade police officer at Miami International Airport Monday night.
Video of the fight circulating on social media shows the officer, surrounded by a crowd, fighting with several passengers. At one point, he pulls away from the crowd and takes out his gun.
The officer was punched and surrounded by a crowd as he was trying to take someone into custody, and did nothing wrong, said the president of the union representing Miami-Dade Police.
“He breaks off and it’s getting out of hand, so he draws his weapon. He stops the crowd and he re-holsters. He did nothing wrong and exactly what he is trained to do,” said Steadman Stahl, president of Miami-Dade’s Police Benevolent Association said.
Stahl said as far as he knows, there is no investigation into the officer’s actions. He said that at least two people were arrested after a group of people tried to ride away on an airport employee golf cart.
The chaos began at Gate H8 around 6:30 p.m. Monday when an airport employee called police for crowd control, according to Miami International Airport.
Passengers had been stranded at the airport for hours, waiting for their Air Century charter flight to Santo Domingo to depart. The 9 a.m. flight had been delayed all day due to a mechanical issue, the airport said. The charter company flies to Cuba and Santo Domingo and has rescheduled its flight for Friday.
Stahl said a crowd of about 100 people had become “unruly.” When the officer arrived, “he went to arrest a passenger. Another person starts punching him and it turns into total chaos,” Stahl said. “The cops have become punching bags. It’s stressing people out.”
The union president said fights at the airport have become so prevalent that Miami-Dade Police are deploying a pair of Rapid Deployment teams with about 30 officers to deal with the crowds over the holidays. Miami International Airport says no one was injured in Monday’s fight.
“Like airports across the country, MIA is seeing record-high passenger numbers this winter travel season. Unfortunately, that passenger growth has come with a record-high increase nationwide in bad behavior as well, such as the incident this evening at MIA,” Miami International Airport Director and CEO Ralph Cutié said in a statement.
The Federal Aviation Administration has seen an increase in unruly passenger incidents across the country this year, including mask-related fights on flights. The FAA says it has received 5,664 unruly passenger reports this year, with 4,072 of the incidents considered to be mask-related, as of Dec. 14, the agency’s most recent data.
Stahl also said that in the past few days, Spirit Airlines has canceled about 30 flights, causing even more unruliness from passengers. And all of this is going on, Stahl said, as about 60 officers are out this week after either contracting COVID-19 or because of it.
“Disruptive passengers face police arrest, civil penalties up to $37,000, being banned from flying, and potential federal prosecution. We have worked so hard to rebound from the pandemic and make traveling safe again, so we can visit our loved ones,” said Cutié. “Please travel responsibly by getting to the airport extra early, being patient, complying with the federal mask law and airport staff, limiting your alcohol consumption, and notifying police at the first sign of bad behavior by calling 9-1-1.”
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