Airline reports woman travelling with biracial daughter for human trafficking

A California woman has alleged racial profiling by the crew of Southwest Airlines led to police probing her for human trafficking. Mary MacCarthy of Los Angeles and her 10-year-old daughter were stopped by police officers on their arrival in Denver from Los Angeles. MacCarthy, who had lost her brother the night before, initially thought that the police were on the jet bridge to deliver the news of another tragedy.

“As for my daughter, she was terribly frightened: she was already experiencing the trauma of her uncle’s death, and she is scared of police due to constant headlines about how police treat Black people (she is Black). She began to sob and was inconsolable,” she wrote in an email to Southwest Airlines’ media team, which has been included in a police report filed regarding the incident.

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The officers assured MacCarthy they only wanted to question her and her daughter because the pair had been reported for suspicious behavior.

“I took out my phone and immediately started recording. I told (the officer) who we were and that my daughter was crying because she had lost a family member,” MacCarthy said.

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According to a report from the Denver police, “Both Mother and child were cleared.”

The report also noted that officers were responding to a “possible Human Trafficking reported by South West flight attendant,” , reports CNN. MacCarthy says she only found out two weeks later that she was suspected of human trafficking.

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“I got a call from Denver Police human trafficking unit letting me know they were following up on the incident,” she told CNN.

Miffed that she wasn’t even offered an apology, MacCarthy now wants the airline to be held “fully accountable.”

In her email to Southwest’s media team, MacCarthy said she wanted a written apology, immediate reimbursement of the full price of their tickets, and “additional compensation to account for the trauma imposed on an innocent family, and especially on a grieving ten year-old Black girl.”

Southwest Airlines said it is “disheartened” by the incident and is conducting a review of the situation internally.