According to a lawsuit filed Monday in North Texas, Michael Lowe was wrongfully arrested and spent 17 days in jail after American Airlines incorrectly identified him to police as a burglar at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.
Michael Lowe
Provided
A man’s life was changed after he spent 17 days in a New Mexico jail because American Airlines wrongfully accused and identified him to police as a shoplifter at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.
Michael Lowe boarded a flight at DFW Airport in May 2020. More than a year later, he said, he was on vacation in New Mexico when he was arrested on warrants he had never heard of for a crime he did not commit.
For more than two weeks, Lowe was held in Quay County Jail at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in “grossly unsanitary conditions,” according to the lawsuit. Lowe said he didn’t even find out what he was charged with until after his release.
“I’ve never heard of this fact pattern in my life or my career,” said Lowe’s attorney, Scott Palmer. “If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone.”
The lawsuit names American Airlines as the sole defendant. In response to requests for comment, an airline representative said Tuesday the company is reviewing the lawsuit.
American Airlines misidentifies
The events that changed Lowe’s life began in May 2020, when a stranger to him shoplifted from a store inside Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, the suit says. Surveillance cameras caught the suspect boarding a flight headed to Reno. American Airlines reported the theft to DFW Airport police, which ordered the Fort Worth-based airline to send over the footage and a passenger manifest showing everyone who boarded the flight.
Instead, American Airlines “departed from its established procedures,” according to the lawsuit, and sent police a single passenger’s information — Lowe’s.
Lowe had been on the flight as a layover on a trip from Flagstaff to Reno.
At the time of the flight, Lowe had two-inch long gray hair and wore a mask. The surveillance footage — screenshots of which are shown in the lawsuit — shows a man with a military-style buzz cut wearing no mask and carrying several items.
Despite the discrepancies in their appearances, American Airlines identified Lowe as the shoplifter seen in the surveillance footage, the lawsuit said. Based on that information, police issued two arrest warrants for Lowe — one for felony burglary of a building and the second for criminal mischief.
Fourteen months later, Lowe — unaware of any of the events with American Airlines or police — was in Tucumcari, New Mexico, with
