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A RETIRED MARINE AND AN EX-COP SUBDUE UNRULY
PASSENGER ON PLANE -- "So, basically, a couple
of
grandfathers took care of the situation."
Be sure to read the last two
paragraphs.
Story here...
http://www.boston.com/
news/local/massachusetts/arti
cles/2007/06/05/graying_du
o_keep_passenger_in_check/
Story below:
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Graying duo keep passenger in check
By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff
Shortly before landing, Bob Hayden and a flight attendant had agreed on
a signal: When she waved the plastic handcuffs, he would discreetly
leave his seat and restrain an unruly passenger who had frightened some
of the 150 people on board a Minneapolis-to-Boston flight Saturday night
with erratic behavior.
Hayden, a 65-year-old former police commander, had enlisted a
gray-haired gentleman sitting next to him to assist. The man turned out
to be a former US Marine.
"I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had
averted their eyes. When I asked the guy next to me if he was up to it,
all he said was, 'Retired captain. USMC.' I said, 'You'll do,' " Hayden
recalled. "So, basically, a couple of grandfathers took care of the
situation."
The incident on Northwest Airlines Flight 720 ended peacefully, but not
before Hayden, a former Boston police deputy superintendent and former
Lawrence police chief, and the retired Marine had handcuffed one man and
stood guard over another until the plane touched down safely at Logan
International Airport around 7:50 p.m.
State Police troopers escorted two men off the flight. Trooper Thomas
Murphy, a State Police spokesman, said one of the men was transported to
Massachusetts General Hospital for "an unspecified medical issue,
possibly mental health."
He said State Police detectives will investigate whether the man's
behavior should be treated as a medical or criminal matter. A second man
escorted off the plane identified himself as the unruly passenger's
brother. Murphy said police would not release the names of the men, who
Hayden said appeared to be in their 30s or 40s.
Dean Breest, a spokesman for Northwest, confirmed that "there was an
incident that required State Police to come on board the aircraft" but
declined further comment.
Hayden said the unruly man's behavior upset some passengers. One told
Hayden the man had said, "Your lives are going to change today forever,"
as he shouted and refused to take his seat before takeoff and at various
times during the nearly three-hour flight. He said that at one point the
man lay on his back and was screaming, moaning, and thrashing on the
floor.
"Some people were crying," Hayden said. "I thought it might be a
diversion. I kept scanning the back of the plane to see if anyone was
going to rush forward. The flight attendants did a great job, literally
surrounding the two guys who were making all the noise. I told one of
the flight attendants I was a retired police officer and would be
willing to assist, so we agreed on a signal."
When the captain announced preparations for landing, the man jumped up
shouting, the flight attendant held up the handcuffs, and Hayden and the
Marine came bounding down the aisle. Hayden said he and the retired
Marine, whose name he never got, received an ovation from fellow
passengers, and "some free air miles."
Hayden's wife of 42 years, Katie, who was also on the flight, was less
impressed. Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger,
she barely looked up from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was
reading.
"The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I
could just sit there reading," Katie Hayden said. "Bob's been shot at.
He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those
situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck,
and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I
didn't know how the book would end."
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Larry Scott --
