Incidents With Airport Security
After several videotaped incidents in 2005, Pacific Wings accused the security firm Wackenhut of harassment.
The first known recorded incident reported in the media happened in October 2005, after the President of the airline and one of his employees were attacked by Wackenhut Security Manager "Butch" Tam Ho in an airport conference room during a meeting in which Pacific Wings requested to bring repeated incidents of harassment by Wackenhut personnel to the attention of airport management. The airline President and his employee were then placed under citizen's arrest by Wackenhut personnel and held for hours without being Mirandized or allowed access to a telephone. The airline executive was knocked unconscious during the event, and his employee suffered a facial fracture. Neither the Pacific Wings President nor the employee were ever charged by prosecutors with any crime, and both arrest records were expunged six months after the incident. Tam Ho was indicted on two counts of witness tampering by a federal Grand Jury in May 2008 and faces up to 10 years in prison in connection with the event. The case went to trial in early 2009, and on October 16, 2009, Tam Ho was found not guilty on all counts due to a legal technicality involving whether Tam Ho's admitted assault was done under color of law.
On November 14, 2005, another employee was accosted by another Wackenhut Security Guard while unloading supplies at the same airport. The employee videotaped the entire incident. On the videotape clip repeatedly broadcast in local media, the guard is shown threatening to kill the employee with a sidearm, shoving and cursing at the employee, and spitting on the employee. The guard, Eric Brown, was arrested by Maui Police and charged with terroristic threatening. Brown was later banned from working on any state property or facility.
On July 8, 2009, Pacific Wings temporarily suspended its Hawaii operations a day after an alleged confrontation between airline employees and Securitas airport police attempting to deliver a citation to Gabe Kimbrell, the airline's president and chief operations officer, in connection with a fuel spill and alleged improper storage of fuel in the airline's Kahului hangar the previous month. The airline resumed flights two days later, announcing that it was reducing service to just three routes, completely eliminating service to Kona and increasing ticket prices.
Read more about this topic: Pacific Wings
Famous quotes containing the words incidents, airport and/or security:
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