Chicago's Department of Aviation finally replied to the LA Times's Freedom of Information request for the police report on the public beating Chicago airport cops dealt to Dr David Dao when United Airlines decided to give his confirmed, paid seat to a crewmember and ordered him to vacate it.
The cops' account of the beating blames Dao, fabricating a series of acts that he allegedly committed that warranted their excessive force, none of which are on the video record.
Chicago airport cops are notoriously dirty — it's a way-station for disgraced ex-cops, including one actual, no-fooling Guantanamo torturer.
Officers at first asked Dao to leave the plane to make room for United crew members. He refused, the report said, and all hell broke loose. One of the officers said he tried to pull the man out of his seat with the assistance of two other officers. "The subject started swinging his arms up and down with a closed fist," one of the officers said in a report. Another officer grabbed the man, but he "started flailing and fighting," the report says.
Next, according to the police report, Dao pushed away an officer's arm. This "caused the subject to fall, hit, and injure his mouth on the armrest on the other side of the aisle." Another officer corroborated that account.
None of this is visible on the videos that passengers posted online. The videos show some type of skirmish and then an officer dragging the bloody man out of the plane to the backdrop of a passenger screaming about the ordeal. One video shows Dao saying, "No I'm not going. I am not going." An officer responds, "Well, we'll have to drag you."
Police story differs from videos of man dragged from United flight
[David Kravets/Ars Technica]
