This irritable airline staffer was finally tapped out of excuses.
A United Airlines flight attendant was arrested for battery earlier this year after allegedly tapping someone on the shoulder — and newly released body camera footage is providing more details on what really went down.
The incident involving a crew member from a separate airline occurred on March 8 on a bus in the employee parking lot.
Bodycam footage from the Tampa International Airport Police Department in Florida, uploaded to YouTube on Dec. 12, showed authorities speaking with two employees from Cayman Airlines upon their arrival at the scene.
The victim, one of the Cayman Airlines employees, told the police that she was standing at the bus shelter, talking on the phone in French and waiting for a bus to arrive when the male flight attendant from United showed up.
An arrest affidavit obtained by People filed in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court of Hillsborough County named Frederick Fleischmann, 58, as the defendant.
“He said it’s my last week here. Trump is gonna deport me,” she told the police officer in the video. “I was like, ‘Are you racist? Why are you bothering me?’”
She went on to say that while they were on the bus, the same man tapped her on the shoulder and said he would “make sure” Cayman Airlines fired her.
Officers confronted the United flight attendant at the gate for his upcoming flight, and he alleged that the woman was “screaming” on the phone and he asked her to turn it off.
“She calls me a racist over and over and over. She flips me off with her fingers, she tells me to go f–k myself, and I said, ‘All we need is quiet in the shelter,’” he claimed.
“I did turn around and put my hand on her shoulder, and I said, ‘Can you please stop?’ And that was the only time I touched her.”
One of the officers informed the man, “That’s technically a battery, just so you know.”
“When you touch or strike somebody without permission — I’m telling you how the Florida statute reads.”
According to Florida’s statute 784.03, the offense of battery occurs when a person “actually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of the other.”
After having the law explained to him, the flight attendant admitted to the officers that he did touch her, ultimately leading to his arrest.
“If you wouldn’t have even touched her, we would’ve left it at verbal,” one of the officers said.
The officers released him in good faith that he would appear in court.
On May 16, the State of Florida formally abandoned the case.
Originally published as Flight attendant arrested before boarding for tapping crew member from another airline on the shoulder
