An intoxicated and combative white man yelled for the NAACP as he was being arrested at a Florida airport on Sunday.
Brandon Strong of Utah went viral on the internet after a video surfaced of him yelling, using profanity and trying to hit a JetBlue employee who refused to let him board a flight from Orlando to Salt Lake City. Strong, 45, who was traveling with his 8-year-old son, had been waiting to board the delayed flight when he began harassing a female passenger and calling her a c**t,” according to the arrest affidavit obtained by Yahoo Lifestyle.
(photo credit: Orange County Jail/ Twitter Screenshot)
That’s when a male JetBlue airline employee told the drunken Strong he would not be allowed on the flight and the father became extremely aggressive.
“I explained to him that he could not travel and asked for his son,” the employee wrote in a sworn statement. “At that point, he pressed his iPad against my chest and pushed me. I pushed his hands away from my chest, and he attempted to grab me. We wrestled, and myself and a couple other customers tried to restrain him.”
Several bystanders took out their phones and began recording the physical confrontation while others intervened. JetBlue staff members kept Strong’s son out of harm’s way while waiting for the cops to show up.
Orlando police approached Strong and warned him three times to drop his bags or he’d be pepper sprayed. According to the police report, one of the officer’s grabbed the 45-year-old man’s wrist before Strong threatened that “bad things would happen” to the officer. The cop then pepper sprayed the man before detaining him.
During Strong’s arrest he shouted, “Where is the NAACP?!” as he insinuated that his treatment was a case of police brutality.
The man’s 8-year-old son witnessed his father’s erratic behavior during the entire incident. However, JetBlue employees made flight arrangements for the young boy to be transported back to Utah to his mother.
Strong was dragged out of Orlando International Airport kicking and screaming and taken to the Orange County Jail.
He will be charged with child neglect, resisting an officer, battery on a law enforcement officer, and other offenses.
Just watched a @JetBlue employee slam a passenger on the ground. Passenger now being arrested. Entire terminal is coughing from pepperspay now. Yay orlando! pic.twitter.com/HGU4UltkyP
— David Guffey (@GuffStuff) October 21, 2018
