MIAMI, Fla. – A 22-year-old man has since bonded out of jail and is sounding off on social media saying that he was “dehumanized” and “treated like livestock” after being wrapped with duct tape on a Frontier flight into Miami from Philadelphia over the weekend.
Meanwhile, the Association of Flight Attendants, CWA, said that the suspensions of the flight attendants involved have been removed. “Instead, the flight attendants have been pulled from duty with pay until the standard incident investigation is complete,” according to the union.
And, along with new videos surfacing online and going viral that show passenger Maxwell Berry being duct-taped into his seat, 28D, to restrain him, a police report details what happened aboard Saturday’s Frontier flight #2239 from Philadelphia to Miami.
Local 10 News showed videos Monday of Berry being taped to his seat with duct tape and a fight between Berry and a male flight attendant.
A Miami-Dade police report obtained by Local 10 News said it all started after Berry was drinking and groped flight attendants’ breasts.
The report said Berry had gone into the airplane’s bathroom after spilling an alcoholic drink on his shirt and then came out of the bathroom “shirtless.” A flight attendant told him to put on a shirt and then helped him get a clean one from his carry-on bag, according to the report.
After walking throughout the plane for “about 15 minutes,” he then “began to get friendly with a second flight attendant, where he proceeded to grope her breasts,” the arrest report stated.
That flight attendant allegedly told him to sit down and not touch her. According to the report, he then came behind two flight attendants and groped their breasts.
After a male flight attendant asked him “several times to calm down and remain seated,” the report said that he punched the attendant in the face “with a closed fist.” Nearby passengers restrained Berry and he was “taped down to the seat and tied with a seatbelt extender for the remaining flight.”
The president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, Sara Nelson, said in a statement that “the crew was forced to restrain the passenger with the tools available to them onboard.” An executive with the airline said Tuesday that the violent confrontation was a serious situation and are trained in different techniques to keep “control of the cabin.”
Berry, who the police report said is from Norwalk, Ohio, faces three battery charges.
While attempts by Local 10 News to reach the passenger have been unsuccessful, a social media account that appeared to belong to Berry read: “This will forever be the most dehumanizing experience in my entire life. Many people laughed and ridiculed me as I was mistreated by staff of a professional airline.”
Another tweet said: “To be clear, I did not grope anybody. This is just the stupid narrative that the media is pushing.”
Local 10 News reached out to the Twitter account holder, but did not get a response. The tweets referring to the plane incident on the account are now unavailable.