David Dao breaks silence after being dragged off United Airlines flight in 2017
A young couple was told to leave first, Bridges recalled. “They begrudgingly got up and left,” he said.
Then an older man, who refused.
“He says, ‘Nope. I’m not getting off the flight. I’m a doctor and have to see patients tomorrow morning,’” Bridges said.
The man became angry as the manager persisted, Bridges said, eventually yelling. “He said, more or less, ‘I’m being selected because I’m Chinese.’”
A police officer boarded. Then a second and a third.
Bridges then began recording, as did another passenger — as the officers leaned over the man, a lone holdout in his window seat.
“Can’t they rent a car for the pilots?” another passenger asks in the videos.
Then the man, out of frame, screams.
One of the officers quickly reaches across two empty seats, snatches the man and pulls him into the aisle.
“My God!” someone yells — not for the first time.
He goes limp after hitting the floor.
“It looked like it knocked him out,” Bridges said. “His nose was bloody.”
His glasses nearly knocked off his face, the man clutches his cellphone as one of the officers pulls him by both arms down the aisle and off the plane.
“This is horrible,” someone says.
“What are you doing? No! This is wrong.”
And with that, Bridges said, four United employees boarded and took the empty seats.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMGzrc2sp6iqpJbBqrvNaGlpaWlkfXV7j3JmnaeTqbyzedahpmavkah6pb7AoJ6enF2osLOxwKagp59dqruqwMSdZJqhoqG2r7HSZp2loZedwW6yyKeYpaSpYq%2BzscCkqmarmaGyr6%2FEaA%3D%3D