Media attention has turned to American Airlines due to an incident where one of its employees said to a police officer, “You’re a cop. That means you’re a killer.” according to WREG.
The incident was partly captured on video:
The event happened about two weeks ago to a New Jersey family at the Memphis International Airport.
Theresia Tirado, her husband, and two children went to customer service to claim a bag that wasn’t on the plane with the family, Tirado said that the attendant whom they looked for help to was not doing his job properly.
“And my husband said you’re basically useless to us,” said Tirado.
She said that the attendant became irritated and for some reason started to rant on how his children are doctors and lawyers, Tirado then said that her husband was a police officer.
“And he said, ‘You’re a cop. That means you’re a killer.”
After that, her husband started recording, and it can be noted that the attendant said, “He might kill me.” and Tirado responded, “Seriously? That is the most offensive thing ever.”
“He might kill me because he’s a police officer who called me useless,” the attendant answered.
“Just to hear somebody say your husband’s a killer, especially in front of our two little boys … It was sad,” said Tirado.
#AmericanAirlines Your employee Gabriel running your baggage customer service counter at Memphis TN airport called my husband a killer because he is a Police officer. How is this allowed! You should be ashamed of yourselves for employing people who act like this #bluelivesmatter pic.twitter.com/Fz66vCyiyQ
— TT (@TheresiaTirado) May 1, 2019
Most responses to this post on Twitter by Theresia found fault with the attendant. O
One of the Twitter users said: “So sorry to hear this, Theresia. Agents like these are disgusting and it’s sad to see that people with this level of disrespect are still out there. Seeing how he doesn’t realize that his actions impact the thousands of other caring and wonderful agents not only at Envoy but also at Memphis and in the industry as a whole. Regardless of what a customer should say to them, he should still act with professionalism, dignity, and respect, and it’s clear he didn’t do it here. Hopefully AA/Envoy do what is best for the airline and industry and take some form of disciplinary action with him.”
However, other people noted that the video was one-sided: “While the airline employee is wrong to say what he did about the husband and wrong again for saying it in front of the children, the video does not show the comment from the husband that prompted the response, does not show what led up to the verbal exchange. Not enough info.” said another Twitter user.
Fox News obtained a statement where American Airlines confirms that they communicated with Tirado and her family, though it was not noted if the attendant was reprimanded in any way.
“We apologize to the Tirados regarding the interaction they had with an Envoy team member at MEM during their travels last month. What we see in the video is extremely concerning: In our culture, every interaction with a customer or team member should be grounded in respect. That’s not what we saw here,” stated American Airlines.
“As soon as we became aware of the issue, we reached out to Mrs. Tirado directly to let her know that we take this very seriously. We have spoken to both Officer and Mrs. Tirado and have assured them that we are taking steps to make things right with them and ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
Woman claims airline employee called husband ‘a killer’ after learning he’s a cop; American Airlines issues apology https://t.co/UucgM28IJN #FoxNews
— DataPath ???????? ???????? (@datapath01) May 2, 2019
