MIAMI – A woman from Pennsylvania was charged with disorderly conduct after refusing to stop yelling on an American Airlines flight landing at Miami International Airport on Saturday, police said.
A YouTube video posted by a passenger on the flight landing from Managua, Nicaragua, showed a woman believed to be Karen Halnon, 52, lighting up a cigarette and then trying to blame the man sitting next to her when passengers alerted flight attendants.
"You just lit a cigarette on board a plane," a flight attendant said.
"Do not blame him," a passenger said.
"Oh, yeah. He did it. I'm sure he did it," the flight attendant said.
According to authorities, Halnon started yelling and refused to listen to the demands of the flight crew.
Halnon, whose doctoral thesis from Boston College was on hysterical women, acknowledged the irony of the cellphone video.
Another YouTube video showed the woman screaming about her views on Venezuela.
"Venezuela has been declared a national security threat," Halnon said.
At one point during her rant, a passenger who was presumably annoyed by the spectacle offered up his own remark.
"You're a national security threat," the passenger said.
At one point, Halnon said, "I'm going to state my peace before I am arrested."
Halnon was escorted off the plane by police, who said Halnon continued yelling, "(Expletive) you. This is not a democracy."
Halnon told Local 10 News that the recent back-and-forth between the U.S. and Venezuela led her to speak her mind.
"The United States military industrial complex is a smoking gun for the rest of the world," Halnon said in a telephone interview.
Halnon was candid about her support of the leftist government in Caracas.
When asked if she considered herself a Chavista, she replied, "Of course," while laughing.
Halnon, who is an associate professor of sociology at Pennsylvania State University-Abington, was arrested and taken to Miami's Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
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