A US woman said on Tuesday that she endured nearly four hours in police custody that included being forced off an airplane in handcuffs, strip-searched and interrogated at Detroit’s airport on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — all, she believes, because of her Middle Eastern appearance.
Shoshana Hebshi, 35, said she was one of three people removed from a Denver-to-Detroit Frontier Airlines flight after landing on Sunday afternoon. Authorities say fighter jets escorted the plane after its crew reported that two people were spending a long time in a bathroom — the two men sitting next to Hebshi in the 12th row.
Hebshi said she didn’t notice how many times the men went to the bathroom.
The FBI has said the three did not know each other. One man felt ill and got up to use the restroom and another man in the same row also left his seat to go to the bathroom. The FBI said they were never inside together.
Hebshi has written extensively on her blog about the incident, saying she felt “violated, humiliated and sure that I was being taken from the plane simply because of my appearance.”
Hebshi, who describes herself as half-Arabic, half-Jewish with a dark complexion, said that after the plane landed, she noticed police first surrounding, then storming the plane. She said she was surprised when they stopped at her row and ordered her and the men to get up.
She said she was patted down and taken by car to a holding cell. A uniformed female officer eventually came in and told Hebshi to take off her clothes.
After the strip search, another officer who identified herself as a Homeland Security agent led Hebshi to another room, she said. There, a man who identified himself as an FBI agent asked her a series of questions while a female agent took notes, Hebshi said.
Hebshi said that when she asked what was going on, the male agent told her someone on the plane reported that she and the men on her row were “conducting suspicious activity.”
FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said the three passengers were questioned, but not arrested before the FBI determined there was no reason to suspect or hold them.
She also said FBI agents who questioned the passengers were not involved in any strip searches.
Airport police are under the supervision of the Wayne County Airport Authority, which operates Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
In an e-mail, agency spokesman Scott Wintner said airport police “responded appropriately by following protocol and treating everyone involved with respect and dignity.”
Wintner said the decision on how to respond was a call made by the Airport Authority’s chief executive, who he said is Arab-American.
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