Southwest Airlines is under fire after a flight attendant found a white mother and her Black daughter suspicious. The pair were met at the airport by a Southwest employee and Denver police following the flight.
After learning her brother had passed away, Mary McCarthy flew with her 10-year-old daughter, Moira, from Los Angeles, California, to Denver, Colorado. When they landed in Denver, they were pulled aside by an airline employee and police officers.
McCarthy learned they had been pulled aside because the flight attendant suspected her of human trafficking. The flight crew member told the police that she flagged them because they boarded the plane last, asked several passengers to switch seats so they could sit together, and didn’t talk for the flight duration.
According to McCarthy, “They said, ‘We’re talking to you because you and your daughter were reported for suspicious behavior.’ That’s when everything clicked in my brain. I’ve been a mother to a biracial child for ten years. I’m aware of racial profiling.”
She recorded the incident and planned to retain an attorney. They were let go at the scene, with police and Southwest chalking it up to a misunderstanding.
