Arizona native Michael Lowe is suing American Airlines after he was incorrectly identified for theft and had to spend 17 days in a New Mexico jail. It seems like a lengthy, confusing story but it’s a weighty and costly case of wrongful imprisonment and mistaken identity.
Grand Canyon Tour Guide SUES American Airlines After He Was Identified as a THIEF and Had to Spend 17 DAYS in a New Mexico Jail in 2021
We have to take a quick trip back to May 2020 when Michael Lowe was traveling from Flagstaff, Arizona to Reno, Nevada. His stopover was at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. There was a break-in at a store at the DFW Airport and surveillance footage was used to find the thief.
If we’ve found out anything from seeing surveillance footage in some of the stories covered here—the footage doesn’t have the best quality. Sure, we can see exactly what the person being filmed is doing but as far as identifying features, you’d do a better job by holding up a piece of plastic wrap smeared in grease in front of someone’s face and saying “That’s the guy.”
Police at the airport used the footage and found that the thief had boarded the same flight as Lowe: 2248. American Airlines was asked for a manifest but only gave the police Michael Lowe’s name. How this was accepted by the police when they requested the manifest is unknown and it’s a question Lowe wants to be answered because a warrant was issued in his name.
So, where does the New Mexico jail come in? In 2021, Lowe was heading to New Mexico for Independence Day festivities. There was a disturbance in the area and the police were checking IDs. When they ran Lowe’s name, the warrant came up and he was arrested.
Lowe, a Grand Canyon tour guide, said that not only did he miss out on work because he was in jail for over two weeks, but the experience was also an awful one. He was locked up in a Tucumcari, New Mexico jail where he said that it was crowded and he had to sleep on a floor that reeked of “urine and feces.”
From his recollection, he waited eight days to see the judge, didn’t receive a lawyer to navigate him through this and was simply released nine days later, confused and short thousands of dollars he missed out on from not working. Michael Lowe would have to clear his own name by calling the DFW Airport’s detective and explaining the situation. After his picture was compared to the person in the surveillance footage, it was deemed he wasn’t the guy.
Even though his name is cleared, he still experienced jail because of neglect and is pushing through his lawsuit. Lowe’s lawsuit states that American Airlines failed to care for him by not doing what the police requested:
“American breached its duty of care to Mr. Lowe by failing to comply with the search warrant, and instead providing only Mr. Lowe’s information to law enforcement. American Airlines should have provided its entire flight manifest as ordered by the warrant or a list of all individuals who matched a certain description.”
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