Associated Press
"EL PASO — A jury awarded $27.5 million in damages to a woman of Iranian descent who alleged she was racially profiled when Southwest Airlines accused her of assaulting a flight attendant and interfering with a flight crew.
Samantha Carrington, of Santa Barbara, Calif., won in the civil case Friday after suing the Dallas-based carrier for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. Carrington was arrested by federal authorities in 2003 after her Houston-to-Los Angeles flight made a scheduled stop in El Paso. Criminal charges were never filed.
According to court records, three flight attendants said Carrington, a naturalized citizen from Iran, became verbally abusive during the flight, grabbed the arm of one flight attendant and threatened to go to the cockpit if the captain was not summoned.
Carrington, 54, denied those allegations and said she was the one mistreated during the short flight. She said the flight attendants lied about her behavior. "In the evidence it came out that one of the flight attendants stated that Ms. Carrington reminded her of a terrorist, and in our views she was the victim of profiling stereotypes and discrimination," her lawyer Enrique Moreno told the El Paso Times for Tuesday's edition."
So the FBI Anti-Terrorism Task Force in San Diego tells us to profile outside our synagogue, and this woman is awarded $27 mill.
Get out of here??? 27 million???--I need a drink!