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North Forest Today May 10, 2018 Page 8<br />
“<strong>The</strong> cops were called on me for flying while fat & Black”<br />
Amber Phillips stepped on an American Airlines flight from Raleigh-Durham to Washington on Thursday evening and immediately noticed<br />
how small the plane was. <strong>The</strong>re were 65 seats, just two in each row.<br />
When Phillips sat down, her arm rested next to that of the passenger in the adjacent seat, she said. <strong>The</strong>ir arms were touching.<br />
“I was thinking, I really hope she doesn’t treat me mean,” said Phillips, 28, who lives in Washington. “She was fidgeting, and finally she<br />
looks at me and goes, ‘Can you move over?’”<br />
Phillips told her: “No, I actually can’t. I’m in the window seat.”<br />
Phillips said she noticed the woman was growing increasingly annoyed at the tight space they were in.<br />
“I wasn’t going to say anything because I know how hard it is for people who are perceived as fat to say, ‘I was mistreated,’” said Phillips,<br />
who shared her experience in a series of viral tweets, including one that said “<strong>The</strong> cops were called on me for flying while fat & Black.”<br />
But soon, Philips decided not to hold her tongue. As the flight progressed, the woman rested her ankle on her own her knee, so the bottom<br />
of her foot was facing Phillips, she said.<br />
Phillips said she felt that the woman was trying to push her closer to the window.<br />
“I said, ‘you’re being awful, don’t let the bottom of your foot touch me,’” Phillips said.<br />
<strong>The</strong> woman, Phillips said, responded.<br />
“She turned my words and said I was being mean,” said Phillips, co-host of the podcast “<strong>The</strong> Black Joy Mixtape.”<br />
Things were tense.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> whole time I was sitting there I was trying not to cry,” Phillips said. “I dropped my headphones and I was afraid to pick them up.”<br />
Phillips said she then grabbed her cellphone and started recording the woman on the plane. <strong>The</strong> woman tried to block her face from<br />
Phillips’s camera. <strong>The</strong>n the woman complained to a flight attendant about Phillips, she said.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y got off the plane at Reagan National Airport and headed to a shuttle bus that would bring them to a terminal.<br />
Phillips said she was surprised moments later when a flight attendant announced that she was calling the police.<br />
An officer with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police arrived and approached Phillips and told her to get off the shuttle,<br />
she said. He told her he was called for an assault investigation and asked her some questions. After a few minutes, the officer told both<br />
Phillips and the other woman they could leave. <strong>The</strong> incident delayed Phillips about 30 minutes, she said.<br />
“All of this because my arm was touching this woman,” Phillips said.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Washington Post could not locate the woman or identify her. Neither the airline, nor the police who were eventually called, would release<br />
her name.<br />
In a news release American Airlines said: “Two passengers seated next to each other engaged in a verbal altercation while on board.<br />
Upon landing in DCA shortly after 8 p.m. ET, one of the passengers requested the flight attendant contact law enforcement.”<br />
Airline spokeswoman Kristen Foster said that American employees had “an obligation” to call the police. “We contacted law enforcement<br />
at the request of another passenger on the flight,” she said in an email. “We have an obligation to contact law enforcement if any passenger<br />
requests it (just as we would if someone requested medical assistance, for example).”<br />
MWAA police said they were called because of an “in-flight incident.”<br />
“Assistance was requested following an in-flight incident involving two passengers, which continued on an American Airlines shuttle bus<br />
at Reagan National Airport. … Both passengers complied with police requests and it was determined that there was no immediate threat<br />
to passenger safety. <strong>The</strong>re were no arrests, no charges were filed and both passengers continued on their way.”<br />
Phillips said she was scared, upset and shaken.<br />
“White people literally need to stop calling the cops on black people who make them uncomfortable,” she said. “<strong>The</strong>y’re calling the cops<br />
like they need to speak to the manager or something. You’re not allowed to call the cops for things that aren’t true.”<br />
By: Allison Klein, <strong>The</strong> Washington Post