On Independence Day last year, Michael Lowe, a tour guide from Flagstaff, Arizona, was vacationing in Tucumcari, New Mexico, when he encountered local police officers who were investigating a disturbance. As part of their investigation, they asked Lowe and his friends for identification, which led to his arrest after the cops found that he had two outstanding warrants in Tarrant County, Texas. The baffled man ended up spending 17 days in a filthy, overcrowded "quarantine pod" at the Quay County Detention Center in Tucumcari, where he barely slept and worried constantly about the ever-present danger of violence.
Lowe initially had no idea what was going on: He did not know where exactly Tarrant County, Texas, was, let alone why he might be wanted for crimes there. Eventually he discovered that American Airlines had mistakenly identified him as a shoplifting suspect after he flew from Flagstaff to Reno, Nevada, on May 12, 2020. That egregious, life-changing error seems inexplicable based on the facts described in a negligence lawsuit that Lowe filed against the company on Monday.
