DENVER (AP) – A 29-year-old man was arrested Tuesday for allegedly binding the hands of a teenager sitting next to him on a Southwest Airlines flight and trying to tape her older sister’s hands as well. The U.S. attorney’s office said Ezra Wallace has been charged with two counts of assault aboard an aircraft for the incident on a San Diego-to-Denver flight on Aug. 1.
According to an arrest affidavit, Wallace and the two teenage sisters were seated in the same row on the flight. Officials said Wallace did not know the girls. Before the plane took off, he allegedly tried to take a photograph of the older sister, who was seated in the aisle seat, but she covered her face. During the flight, the younger sister, who is 16, said Wallace took out some pre-torn strips of white athletic tape from his backpack and used a figure eight pattern to tie her hands together with the tape.
The older sister managed to free her sister, tearing off the tape with her teeth. Afterward, Wallace allegedly tried to tape the older sister’s hands to those of her younger sibling, according to the document. A flight attendant who saw what was happening then moved the two girls to a different row with their brother. Wallace was allowed to stay on the Denver-bound flight, and the FBI interviewed the 16-year-old a week later.
So how does a guy like this get by Airport Gestapo, and he isn’t even detained upon landing? There is something missing about this story.
This is weird. The flight crew should have had police waiting for this guy when they landed.
this doesn’t make sense to me. I can’t imagine allowing anyone taping my hands together on a plane. It would be far too easy to resist something like this, let alone make a lot of noise complaining about it. There’s a lot of missing info here. It just doesn’t add up.
Why does weird stuff always seem to happen on Southwest Airlines flights? You never hear about this on Delta or American.
Imagine when we have space travel to the moon all the “space cadets” and nutcases we will have
At the least the women travelers were lucky that they were not traveling in a greyhound bus next to a guy with a knife .
#3. Blame it on the Altitude.
Greyhound… or “The Dirty Dog” as my brother likes to call them.
Q: Who rides Greyhound?
A: Criminals and their victims.
Well, SWA is more like a bus with wings than an airline anyhow.
Was it this girl?
http://www.starstore.com/acatalog/vicky-pollard-l-poster.jpg
#3 John
I think it’s caused by Southwest’s cattle call seating approach.
How does he get away with only being charged for assault?
At a minimum he should be charged with unlawful imprisonment and maybe kidnapping or attempted kidnapping.
A sick puke like this needs to be somewhere away from children for a very long time.
It doesn’t sound right. The incident happened on August 01. He made his first appearance on Wednesday and held in custody until Friday, Oct. 10 for a bail hearing.
If in over two months he was walking around without incident, how does he suddenly become a flight risk?
If he assaulted someone on the plane and the crew were aware of it, was the plane not met by law enforcement?
Nope, this is bullshit and the only story seems to be the one by AP.
Yeah, well, its Southwest…..you get what you pay for…..
I think he was more drunk then a threat.
The full story says he had 1/2 pint of vodka.
The tapeist was “allowed to stay on the flight”.
(Note: The taping was done after takeoff.)
What does that mean? Were they going to ask him
to leave in mid-air? Or was there a stop-over
and they let him stay aboard?
If you thought some freak was going B.T.K. on
you , wouldn’t you scream your freaking head
off?
The flight crew just moved the girls to different seats? If they thought he was a threat HE would be the one tied up. And
arrested as soon as the plane landed.