An Arizona man who spent 17 days in a New Mexico jail is suing American Airlines after they allegedly identified him to police as a shoplifting suspect.
Grand Canyon tour guide Michael Lowe filed a lawsuit on Monday accusing the airline of informing authorities that he had stolen items from a duty-free store at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in May 2020.
Mr Lowe was unaware of the outstanding arrest warrants until fourteen months later when he was arrested while visiting friends in Tucumcari, New Mexico.
He was taken to a county jail where he was forced to sleep on a concrete floor that reeked of urine and faeces, faced constant threat of violence from other prisoners and was harassed by corrections officers, according to the lawsuit obtained by The Independent.
The lawsuit states that police, prison authorities and a judge refused to inform Mr Lowe what he had been charged with.
Mr Lowe was eventually released more than two weeks later without explanation. He then endured a two-day bus journey to his home in Flagstaff, where upon arrival he sobbed “until he could no longer stand.”
He said in the suit he has been left traumatised by the ordeal, and suffers from an “ongoing state of hypervigilance that has robbed him of any ability to rest or relax”.
Mr Lowe’s ordeal began when he flew from Flagstaff to Reno on 12 May 2020 with a layover in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Airport authorities were alerted to a shoplifting incident at a duty-free store shortly before the flight departed, and surveillance footage captured a suspect boarding Mr Lowe’s plane.
Police ordered American Airlines to hand over a passenger manifest. But according to the lawsuit, they identified Mr Lowe as the suspect after reviewing surveillance footage and only passed his details over.
Mr Lowe’s lawsuit contains a selfie he took aboard the flight, which shows him with medium-length greying hair and wearing a mask.
Surveillance images included in the lawsuit shows the maskless suspect sporting a buzzcut.
Based on the false identification, police issued two arrest warrants for Mr Lowe for felony burglary and criminal mischief.
Fourteen months later while visiting friends in Tucumcari with his dogs, Mr Lowe attended a party where police were called.
When attending officers checked the partygoers names, Mr Lowe was stunned to find he had an outstanding arrest warrant.
“Mr Lowe told his friends - who were only visiting New Mexico, and were not locals - not to worry, it would all get cleared up quickly. He was wrong,” the suit states.
Mr Lowe was taken to Quay County Jail, where his pleas of innocence “were not merely falling on deaf ears, but appeared to be antagonising the jailers.”
He was forced to strip naked and probed for contraband, and placed in general population with suspects who were accused of serious violent crime.
For the next 17 days, Mr Lowe was in a “constant state of fear” that he would be targeted for physical abuse or sexual assault.
Mr Lowe’s suit says the corrections officers showed “contempt for the health, safety and well-being of its inmates”, and refused to wear masks even as the Delta Covid-19 wave swept through the state.
He also witnessed a young inmate punched repeatedly in the head, and said the resulting blood remained on a wall for days.
About eight days into his incarceration, Mr Lowe was taken before a judge who continued to refuse to explain what he had been charged with.
Mr Lowe said he was given two options: waive extradition so he could be transported back to face charges, or wait until authorities in Texas were ready to pick him up.
He said he took the court’s advice and waived extradition.
After being returned to jail, and with no information about when he might be release, his “suffering became most acute”.
Nine days later, he was released without explanation, the suit states.
Mr Lowe said he walked to a McDonald’s and boarded a Greyhound bus for Flagstaff, which took 48 hours.
His attorney Scott Palmer was able to get the criminal charges dropped after convincing a detective at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to compare photos of his client with images of the suspect in the surveillance footage.
Mr Palmer told The Independent they were seeking “substantial money damages for his needless suffering and mental anguish as a result of being arrested and incarcerated for a crime he had absolutely nothing to do with”.
“If this can happened to Michael Lowe it can happen to anyone,” Mr Palmer added.
In a statement to The Independent, an American Airlines spokesman said: “As required by law, American cooperates with and responds to court orders for information related to possible criminal activity, and that’s what we did in this instance when we were presented with a search warrant.”
